In the Ruins of Empire : The Japanese Surrender and the Battle for Postwar Asia

Spector follows up on Eagle Against the Sun, his account of the American struggle against the Japanese in World War II, with a chronicle of the aftermath of this crucial conflict. He tells the fascinating story of the deadly confrontations that broke out--or merely continued--in Asia after peace was proclaimed. Under occupation by the victorious Allies, this part of the world was plunged into new power struggles, or back into old feuds, that in some ways were worse than the war itself. International suspicions were still strong; die-hard Japanese officers plotted to prevent surrender; in Manchuria, Russian "liberators" looted, raped, and killed innocent civilians; in China a fratricidal rivalry continued between Chiang Kai-shek's regime and Mao's revolutionaries; and Southeast Asia and Korea became powderkegs, with Communists only one of several competing anticolonial factions. --From publisher description.