This new history of China's pivotal wars from 1894 to 1949 explains how China was transformed from a isolated and ramshackle medieval empire into a fledgling new world power.China is one of the great powers of the modern world. Yet in the late 19th century China was a ramshackle and isolated medieval empire upon whom the European colonial powers could impose their wishes at will.China's Wars describes the series of conflicts from 1894 to 1949 that forged modern China, from colonial clashes such as the Boxer Rebellion, through the chaotic years of warlord domination to the Japanese invasion, the Second World War and the bitter Civil War that followed.Previously unpublished photographs, contemporary pictures and specially-commissioned maps illustrate these tumultuous events and the men who fought them, events that would end with the eventual triumph of the Communist Party and the rise of modern China.