Inside Asia

by John Gunther

A virtual "Who is Who" in Asia, from Tel Aviv to Tokyo, on the eve of WW2. Gunther introduces the history and national characteristics of each nation, together with the biographies of their statesmen, politicians and war lords. Full of details and anecdotes, this is a superb accomplishment.

Genres: History, Asia, Travel, Nonfiction, China

659 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1939

About the author

John Gunther was one of the best known and most admired journalists of his day, and his series of "Inside" books, starting with Inside Europe in 1936, were immensely popular profiles of the major world powers. One critic noted that it was Gunther's special gift to "unite the best qualities of the newspaperman and the historian." It was a gift that readers responded to enthusiastically. The "Inside" books sold 3,500,000 copies over a period of thirty years.

While publicly a bon vivant and modest celebrity, Gunther in his private life suffered disappointment and tragedy. He and Frances Fineman, whom he married in 1927, had a daughter who died four months after her birth in 1929. The Gunthers divorced in 1944. In 1947, their beloved son Johnny died after a long, heartbreaking fight with brain cancer. Gunther wrote his classic memoir Death Be Not Proud, published in 1949, to commemorate the courage and spirit of this extraordinary boy. Gunther remarried in 1948, and he and his second wife, Jane Perry Vandercook, adopted a son.

Reviews

[Julio The Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

DEALING WITH SOME HEALTH ISSUES; FULL REVIEW TO COME: John Gunther stepped into Asia in the middle of a whirlwind. When he arrived in 1937 China was roaring back to life in the face of the Japanese invasion, Japan had conquered Manchuria and Inner Mongolia, India had exploded in independence fervor under Gandhi and Nehru, and the rest of the continent, from the Philippines to Palestine, was caught between the twin fires of imperialism and nationalism. This revised 1942 second edition of his classic text finds Gunther contemplating Asia after Pearl Harbor and the Japanese seizure of the Philippines, Malaya, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies and Burma. What was the secret of Japan's lightning success? Could China under Chiang Kai Check hold out? Would the British pull out of India? Was the white race finished on the continent? Gunther, the most famous journalist in the world at the start of the Forties, swears he visited every place he writes about except Tibet and Saudi Arabia. INSIDE ASIA bears reading today not only for its grim historical lessons on the rise and fall of empires but also because the key issues touched upon in this magnificent volume, the birth of modern China, Japan's swift industrialism turned imperialism, India's move away from religion and towards modernity, and the festering problem of conflicting Arab nationalism and Zionism in the Middle East are extant and explosive. Gunther begins his grand tour of a continent aflame in Japan. Japanese politics in the Thirties were fiery and tumultuous. This was the period the Japanese call "government by assassination". Half a dozen prime ministers had been murdered by army hawks, and the country barely survived an army coup in February of 1936 to restore full powers to the emperor, under military tutelage of course. Still, Japan did not fracture and industrialization allowed her to launch war on Manchuria in 1931. How could the nation be unsettled and stable all at once? Gunther finds the key in the unique combination of tradition and modernity manifest in Japan. The Emperor Hirohito was sacred and no one dared make political moves that might earn his displeasure. Cabinets and prime ministers came and went but the monarchy, and with it Japan's class system, endured. Shinto had terrific political uses in glorifying the royal house, nation, and Japan's military tradition without, however, stultifying society and blocking innovation, a curse Gunther bemoans in India. Japan's leading industrial firms, above them all the house of Mitsubishi, successfully transitioned from landowners to financial and technological giants, allowing Japan to skip the wars of feudalism that tore apart Europe while keeping economic power in the same hands. One jarring note Gunther finds is that the Japanese military, zealously pro-Emperor, was the same force that advocated state capitalism or national socialism for Japan. Army officers insisted on a redistribution of wealth away from the old magnates and towards workers and peasants to shore up patriotic support for war. What sort of future did the militarists envision for Japan in Asia? The war of conquest Japan launched in Manchuria in 1931 and extended into China proper in 1937 had all the earmarks of a racial conflict. Gunther quotes army pamphlets distributed to the Chinese featuring blazing attacks of European rule in Asia and white racism. Japan assumed the mantle of an avenging angel towards the European powers and the United States. In the puppet state of Manchukuo Gunther finds the embryo of the "East-Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere"; Japanese political and military supremacy, capitalist investment of Japanese firms functioning in the occupied territories under Army protection, and local rule through Tokyo-appointed native ministers. In his chapter "Guinea Pigs of Manchukuo" Gunther draws a pathetic portrait of the most famous puppet of them all, "The Last Emperor", Hank Pu-Yi, "the most inconsequential monarch on earth", and his court of Japanese stooges. Gunther is honest enough to admit that this same pattern of imperialist conquest had been practiced in Asia by the British, French, Dutch and Americans. Japan was only imitating the European and U.S. Original Gangsters. Her crime was to come late to the game and covet the biggest prize of all, China. Gunther finds Chiang personally distasteful but also the only man who could hold China together. Chiang is stubborn, dictatorial and little interested in any world save his own. But, he is the heir of Sun Yat Sen and conqueror of the Chinese warlords. The family he married into, the Soongs, is another matter. The"Sing a Song of Soongs" chapter highlights Chiang's marriage to Mei Ling Soong, Mrs. Chiang, and her powerful brothers and sisters. "This remarkable family runs China". They are super rich, politically powerful and clueless regarding China's future. Intentionally or not, Gunther reveals two reasons for the fall of Chiang in the Revolution of 1949; nepotism and runaway corruption. The portrait of the Chinese Communists, "Reds Who Wear Blue" is suggestive of their future victory. Mao comes across as a Chinese George Washington, and a talk with Chou En Lai, an impressive young man, convinces Gunther he is a patriot first and a Communist second. We leave this tour of China convinced Chiang is playing a dangerous game; having the Communists fight the Japanese while he watches from afar, raking in U.S. aid and assuming himself indispensable. After a quick look at the fey Manuel Quezon of the Philippines, "the Beau Brummel of dictators", we are off to India with its colossal problems and two colossal men, Gandhi and Nehru. The Japanese rampage through the Pacific in 1941-42, overthrowing centuries of colonial rule by the U.S., Britain, and the Netherlands, French Indochina had fallen in June of 1940 without a peep from Paris, turned the eyes of the world on the biggest prize of all, British India. Gunther is incredibly candid on why the Europeans in Asia had their backs to the wall, with the Japanese waiting to strike again from Burma---white racism. The colonial powers discriminated against and dared not arm their subjects, the Philippines was the exception, but still lost, and Japan took advantage of a racial "divide and rule" strategy. Would their success be echoed on the sub-continent?

[Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh my, this thing is epic. I kept in on the back burner for several months, but now I'm finally done. So many ironies in the rear-view. That's the problem with most topical works. Long treatments of the political situations in Japan, China, and India. Shorter but valuable excursions into Philipines, Indonesia, Indochina, Thailand, Persia, Arabia, & Israel. Yeah, it's dry in places, but if you care about the time and place, I'm gonna tell you to read it. I got an original in a hole-in-the-wall shop, but reprints exist.

[Ann Otto · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're interested in the state of the Asian world as it existed-geographically, politically, culturally-in 1939, John Gunther provides it all in minute detail. There's a lot to digest. It's not an easy read; but one can understand all that went on in the decades leading up to WWII. The world was different, but fascinating: the revolutions in China; modernization of Japan; the rise of Gandhi; premonitions of the end of imperialist holdings. For all modern history lovers.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

From Tokyo to Jersualem, what a journey this book takes you through.

There's two versions of this book. Both ought to be read to get the most out of it. As usual, Gunther finds himself in the middle of developing historical events and the first edition came out in 1939, already long after the Japanese invasion of mainland Asia had begun. The second edition in 1942 most likely came about because of Pearl Harbor, but it also covers the Fall of Singapore. It's very interesting to compare the chapters that were updated.

The biggest weakness of this book is its ambition. Inside Asia, and yet it appears to be one of the smaller Inside... books. He really does mean all of Asia, from Siberia to Indonesia, from Japan to Palestine, but at best this feels like three books: one on Japan, one on China, and one on India, the rest is frills, worthy of entries in a magazine. There's aren't many threads which bind the continent as a whole in the same sense that Europe can be thought of as a cultural and geographic unit. India fears invasion by Japan, there was a celebrated meeting between Chiang Kai Shek and Nehru, and who knew there were Japanese in Afghanistan buying bicycles and hiring spies.

If anything united most of Asia it was European imperialism, most conspicuously that of the British. From Chinese ports, to controlling the princes of Southeast Asia, to trying to keep the lid on Indian nationalism, to making kings in the Middle East, to playing the role of gatekeepers to Zionism, they're everywhere. In the India chapters one is definitely reminded of the comparison to an imaginary situation in which Japan manages to conquer and then have to administrate all of Europe! I was not expecting to find them even in Tibet trying to exert their influence.

This is still very personality driven history. In classic Gunther style the section on India has to have entire chapters on Nehru and Ghandi. The book has to begin with a chapter on the Japanese Emperor, and of course there must be long sections on Chiang Kai Shek, the Soong family, and the various Chinese warlords, the latter actually being kind of tiring: short miscellaneous blurbs that go on for way too long.

These books in historical perspective are always interesting. His coverage on China doesn't really seem to hint at the serious possibility of a Red victory. It seems that even Japan is more likely to be in charge of China by 1950. The Communists are covered, but they're a band or rogues on the sidelines, lead by two prominent men, "Mao Tse-tung" and "Chu Teh."

Fifty years of retrospect also draw one very strongly to the modest but well written section on the Middle East. "The basic problem of Iraq is national integration. The country is riven with minorities." It's hardly the only "Arabic" country to struggle with this, then and now. The book ends with Palestine in an astonishingly one sided coverage of the issue. The Arabs legal right to the land is questionable, and Jewish immigrants have nothing to offer but benefits to the land and the surrounding people. Gunther is always an optimist, and not just in this book.

As far as one volume treatments of the entire continent of Asia that don't require exorbitant amounts of time, it's going to be difficult to find anything like this. It's old of course, but still relevant because of how fortunate Gunther always is whenever he decided to write about a place.

[Nils · Rating 3 out of 5]

An odd book: essentially a series of pen portraits of who’s who politically across Asia in 1939, on the Eve of world war. It’s mainly focused on personalities and characters of political leaders, with only glances as their policy agendas and very little analysis of the structural conditions of the countries in question. Neither the massively intense poverty nor demographic vastness of Asia come into clear focus, nor does the tenuousness of the imperial projects, almost all of which would come to a close across the region over the next decade.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was published only two years before Pearl Harbor and is very much a western view of the current situation in the East in the 1930s, mostly focusing on China and Japan, but also touching on South East Asian countries like Siam (modern Thailand) and the Philippines. I thoroughly enjoyed it, even if it is a dense book, despite some rather stereotyped views of Asia (like all Japanese people are rather disagreeable and unpleasant, according to Gunther). It is more an interesting study of the western perspective of Asia on the eve of WWII.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three and a half stars. No review as others have written relevant ones.

[Kenneth Fehl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this on a cruise to Asia. Extremely informative read even after 80 years. You do have to overlook some biases and un-PC comments.