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This monograph,weighing in a hefty 504 pages including bibliography and index of proper names,is a labor of love and a tour de force.Chang Jui-te is perhaps best known as one of the foremost military historians of Republican China.Although the key figures that populate this monograph were all military men,this is not primarily a work of military history.Chang's earlier monographs focussed on Republican era institutions,particularly railroads,but despite its ostensible subject—Chiang Kai-shek's personal secretariat—this is no mere institutional study.Instead,Wusheng de Yaojue goes far beyond Chang's earlier work,and by sheer force of example makes a very strong case for bringing together different kinds of history.Institutional history,military history,biographical history,intelligence history,Party history,diplomatic history,and the fraught history of modern China in Tibet are all covered.And if one widens notions of culture to include the difficult circumstances and perceptual filters under which individuals made the kinds of decisions they did,then cultural history is included as well.