Kukan: The Battle Cry of China (1941)

I’m not so sure that this is a “battle cry”, but more of an interesting travelogue of a nation where civilisation has prevailed for centuries and where life for many has changed little in that time. The pretext for journalist Niles Welch’s journey is, of course, the militaristic ambitions of the Japanese as their troops emerge from their Manchurian enclave to challenge both the established British and French colonial enterprises as well as those of Chiang kai-shek in the age-old interior of this largely agrarian land of hundred of millions of people. Beginning in the city of Chungking, his journey is still largely unimpeded by their enemy as he traverses a country where flour is still stone milled, where roads are regularly washed out by torrential rains and where the rivers are ar...