Last Three Seasons of Field Work in Hsiao-t’un Before World War II

The Japanese invasion of China in the summer of 1937 suspended the excavations which had been planned in 1928 by trained archaeologists under the able leadership of Director Fu Ssŭ-nien of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, and which had continued thereafter for nine years with only occasional interruptions. This Japanese invasion was the prelude to the worldwide conflict known as World War II. Western historians are still in the habit of dating the outbreak of World War II from Hitler’s challenge to Western Europe, neglecting altogether the early phase of this global warfare in the Far Eastern theater. As a matter of historical truth, it seems almost impossible to divide this tragic story.