China was afflicted by a brutal succession of conflicts through much of the 19th and 20th centuries. In this examination of how wartime suffering defined the nation and shaped its people, a distinguished group of historians of modern China look beyond the geopolitical aspects of war to explore its social, institutional, and cultural dimensions, from child rearing and education to massacres and warlord mutinies. Though accounts of war-inflicted suffering are often fragmented or politically motivated, the authors show that they are crucial to understanding the multiple fronts on which wars...