China was afflicted by a brutal succession of conflicts through muchof the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Yet there has never beenclear understanding of how wartime suffering defined the nation andshaped its people. In Beyond Suffering, a distinguished group of historians ofmodern China look beyond the geopolitical aspects of war to explore itssocial, institutional, and cultural dimensions, from child rearing andeducation to massacres and warlord mutinies. Though accounts ofwar-inflicted suffering are often fragmented or politically motivated, the authors show that they are crucial to understanding the multiplefronts on which wars are fought, experienced, and remembered. Thechapters in Part 1, “Society at War," reveal how war andmilitarization can both structure and destabilize society, while thosein Part 2, “Institutional Engagement," show howinstitutions and the people they represent can become pawns in largerpower struggles. Lastly, Part 3, “Memory andRepresentation," examines the various media, monuments, andsocial controls by which war has been memorialized. Although many of the conflicts described in BeyondSuffering barely registered against the sweeping backdrop ofChinese history, such conflicts bring us closer to understanding war, militarism, and suffering in modern China. | Beyond Suffering by James Flath, Paperback | Indigo Chapters