Critiquing Norman D. Palmer's The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek

Abstract

As we assess, or reassess, the life of Chiang Kai-shek, it can be certainly regarded as one of the controversial and polemical topics modern history has to offer. However, subscribing to a very polarized perspective about his life is rather a prevalent yet equally perilous intellectual practice. Consequently, this article review dissects the 1948 journal article of American political scientist Norman D. Palmer entitled The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang’s early life and his rise to power, as Palmer has expressed, demands a thorough re-reading in an attempt to move the usual optics about him and view Chiang’s thirst for power and political prestige from the lens of his formative years as a person and as a member of the Kuomintang Party under Dr. Sun Yat-sen. Palmer also intended to make the study of Chiang’s life as neutral as possible, devoid of anything extremely prejudicial to one side. The article, on the other hand, has suffered from numerous methodological, conceptual, and semantic flaws, which casts a cloud of doubt over the veracity of the presented information. But despite such shortcomings, Palmer’s article presented a proper, relatively impartial, re-narration of the early life of Chiang Kai-shek, which ultimately determined his life and decisions after claiming the mantle of the Kuomintang’s leader in 1927.