The influence of war and the military on the politics of Republican China has become a prominent emphasis of scholarship. Three recent books display the multiple ways in which conflict, particularly against Japan, shaped both Republican China and its successor, the People's Republic of China, highlighting-among other insights-the significance of contingency. This essay discusses the following works. Kwong Chi Man. War and Geopolitics in Interwar Manchuria: Zhang Zuolin and the Fengtian Clique during the Northern Expedition. Studies on Modern East Asian History. Leiden: Brill, 2017. 327 pp. $119.00 (cloth). vertical bar Hans van de Ven. China at War: Triumph and Tragedy in the Emergence of the New China. London: Profile Books, 2017; repr. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018. 352 pp. $35.00 (cloth). vertical bar Peter Worthing. General He Yingqin: The Rise and Fall of Nationalist China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. 316 pp. $110.00 (cloth), $31.99 (paper).