Still Time to Die

Philadelphia: The Blakiston Company, 1944. Not a first. Authorized by Harper & Row, may be a book club. Hardcover. Good. No dust jacket. Cover has some wear and soiling Pencil erasure residue on fep.. ix, [1], 322, [4] p. 22 cm. Map. From WIkipedia: "Jack Belden (February 3, 1910 in Brooklyn, New York June 3, 1989 in Paris) was an American war correspondent who covered the Japanese invasion of China, the Second World War and the Chinese Revolution. As one of the noted foreign correspondents in China in the 1930s and 1940s, Belden spoke Chinese well and often traveled to the front lines to cover events from the point of view of soldiers and villagers. He traveled often in the company of General Joseph Stilwell, who also spoke Chinese, and with colleagues Agnes Smedley and Edgar Snow. After graduating with honors from Colgate University at the beginning of the Depression, Belden found work as a merchant seaman. In 1933, he jumped ship in Shanghai. He learned Chinese and eventually got a job covering local courts for Shanghai's English-language newspapers. After Japan invaded China in 1937, Belden was hired by United Press. Life magazine soon picked him up and he spent most of the Second World War as a correspondent for Time and Life in China, North Africa and Europe. Belden was noted in China for getting closer to the action than most of the international press corps who, hampered by their inability to speak the language, usually stayed close to official sources of information. In 1942, Belden earned some fame for being the only reporter who remained with Stilwell in Burma when the American General and his headquarters staff were cut off by the invading Japanese. Belden's book Retreat With Stilwell (1943) chronicled the journey that "Vinegar Joe", his staff and others made, mostly on foot, to India. Belden went on to cover the war for Life in North Africa and Europe. In North Africa, he covered the British 8th Army s grueling march from Egypt to Tunisia. Again, Belden distinguished himself by getting as close to the combat and the people fighting it as possible. After the Africa campaign, Belden landed with the invading troops in Sicily and Salerno. In 1943, Belden's leg was shattered by machine-gun fire during the Salerno invasion. After recovering in the U.S., he returned to Europe and covered the invasion of France and the end of the War in Europe. Eric Sevareid, in his autobiography Not So Wild a Dream, recounts crossing paths with Belden in the final weeks before the Nazi surrender. A collection of short essays, Still Time to Die, (1944) includes his reportage from battlefields in Asia, North Africa and Europe. Belden published China Shakes the World in 1949, when the American public had lost interest in reports from China. The book s reputation came only in the 1960s, when the Monthly Review Press reprinted it in paperback with a sympathetic introduction by Owen Lattimore.