Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937-1945 by Rana Mitter Page A

has detailed knowledge of the Second World War in Asia and isn’t afraid to deploy it (in the most collegial way possible). Richard Mason and Cecilia Mackay did a wonderful job with copy editing and picture research, respectively, and the process was overseen by Richard Duguid. My agent Susan Rabiner has been a source of endless encouragement and good sense, and I am extremely grateful to her for using her long experience in publishing to place the project so well.
    So many colleagues have contributed to this book over the years that I am reluctant to single out too many. But I am extremely grateful to friends who have inspired ideas, read sections, and made suggestions, including Robert Bickers, Karl Gerth, Graham Hutchings, Toby Lincoln, Andres Rodriguez, Patricia Thornton, Steve Smith, and Hans van de Ven. Friends and colleagues in China have also been immensely collegial with aspects of the project over the years, including Wu Jingping, Chen Qianping, Chen Hongmin, and Zhou Yong, and I am very grateful to all of them. It has also been a privilege to write the book while employed in the stimulating circumstances of the Faculty of History and Department of Politics and International Relations at Oxford, as well as enjoying the pleasures of a fellowship at St. Cross College.
    I had a wonderful research team in 2007–2012, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, all of whom contributed immensely to this project: Lily Chang, Federica Ferlanti, Sha Hua, Matthew Johnson, Amy King, Sherman Xiaogang Lai, Tehyun Ma, Aaron William Moore, James Reilly, Helen Schneider, Isabella Jackson, Elina Sinkkonen, Akiko Frellesvig, and Christine Boyle. I also want to give thanks in particular to Annie Hongping Nie, whose patient work has been crucial to this project. Our several years of joint document reading were one of the great pleasures of writing this book.
    I am also very grateful for the assistance of colleagues and staff at various archives, including the Chongqing Municipal Archive; Shanghai Municipal Archive; No. 2 National Archive in Nanjing (in particular, Ma Zhendu); the United Nations Archive in New York; the Public Record Office (National Archive), London; the Yale Divinity Library; and the National Archives at College Park, Maryland. I am most grateful for permission to cite from the unpublished sections of the Chiang Kai-shek diary held at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. At the Bodleian Library, David Helliwell has always been a fount of knowledge about sources and always resourceful in helping to fund the purchase of new materials.
    The existence of this book is due, in very large part, to the generosity of one external funder: the Leverhulme Trust. In 2004 the Trust awarded me a Philip Leverhulme Prize, which allowed me an extended period of research leave to gather materials and spend time thinking about the shape of this project. In 2007 I was honored to receive a Leverhulme Research Leadership Award, a five-year project grant that allowed me to manage a team of postdoctoral fellows and graduate students, to hold conferences, and to travel to China. All of this activity hugely enriched the book, and I am immensely grateful to Leverhulme for their support; with a combination of financial support and light-touch management, they are the ideal funder. I was also supported at various times by grants including the British Academy-China Academy of Social Sciences exchange scheme, for which I am also most grateful.
    No book exists without context, and for me the most joyous part of its voyage to publication has been to share it with my family (who were increasingly unselfish in the face of my ever more urgent need to finish the manuscript): Katharine, Malavika, Pamina, Iskandar, my parents Partha and Swasti, and Gill, Hal, William, Darunee, Miranda, and Charlotte.
    Rana Mitter Oxford, January 2013

Photo Credits
    Garden Bridge, Shanghai, August 18, 1937 : © Randall Chase Gould Papers, [Box/album fH], Hoover Institution