Manchuria is slowly beginning to rival Shanghai in popularity as a topic for new work in Republican Chinese history. As in Shanghai, it is clear that the most crucial questions about nationalism, war, stability and modernization all came to a head in the north-eastern provinces of China. Ronald Suleski's book is a welcome addition to the studies on these topics, providing an innovative and well-supported argument to show that, far from being merely a desert of endless warlord battles, the early Republic (1911–1928) was a time when differing ideas of the way forward for China battled for supremacy.