Victory as Defeat: Postwar Visualizations of China’s War of Resistance

There was an extraordinary amount of violence in China during the first fifty years of the twentieth century, but the War of Resistance was by far the worst instance. Tens of millions experienced that conflict as nothing less than a holocaust. Death, destruction, privation, and persecution were daily occurrences. Communities were ripped apart. Individual incidents of terror and agony were reported in the press, but, so long as the struggle was still unfolding, it was difficult for participants to evaluate the devastating impact of the war on Chinese society. Not until the defeat of Japan was it possible to craft