Chen Li-fu's memoir, The Storm Clouds Clear over China, describes the tragedy and hope of China's twentieth-century revolution as seen through the eyes of a major participant. Chen served as the private secretary and close confidant of Chiang Kaishek, president of the Republic of China, holding important official posts during the momentous years from 1926 to 1950. His recollection encompasses the titanic struggle between the Kuomintang (the Chinese National party) and the Chinese Communist party. To this day, no high-ranking member from either party has published memoirs of the period; and Chen thus provides invaluable portrayals of some of the personalities who shaped the destiny of modern China. In the early 1920s, Chen came to the United States to study mining engineering at the University of Pittsburgh. After gaining practical experience as a coal miner in Pittsburgh and Scranton, Chen returned to China. His uncle Ying-shih, a follower of Sun Yat-sen and military governor of Shanghai, had been a patron of the young Chiang Kai-shek, and his older brother, Kuo-fu, was then deeply involved in preparing for the forthcoming Nationalist Revolution; these connections gained Chen Li-fu a position as private secretary to Chiang. Chen's loyalty and outstanding abilities won Chiang's absolute trust. Over the following quarter century, Chen enjoyed considerable political influence as he advanced through several important official positions. In March 1926, after a communist plot to kill Chiang failed, Chen became an ardent anti-Communist. The memoir reveals that further attempts on Chiang's life convinced Chiang and his colleagues that the Communists had to be destroyed, a decision that launchedthe April 1927 purge of the Communists from the Kuomintang in which Chen played a major role. Chen's unique account presents new information about Chiang Kai-shek's arrest of Kuomintang veteran Hu Han-min in March 1931, an act which fatally split the Kuomintang and set the stage for a decline in the Kuomintang's prestige and authority and its loss of popular support. Chen also sheds new light on Wang Ching-wei's flight to Hanoi in 1938 and Li Tsung-jen and his Kwangsi clique's opposition to Chiang during the civil war from 1945 to 1949. Chen, who served Chiang Kai-shek loyally and capably, still believes that Chiang was the most suitable person to lead China in those stormy decades. He does not hesitate, however, to expose Chiang's character, his temper, or his ambition. With candor and clarity he describes the personality clashes, the internal power struggles, economic reforms, and difficulties in handling foreign affairs that ultimately led to the defeat of the Kuomintang and the ignominious retreat of the Nationalist government to Taiwan in 1949.