Christopher R. Lew was recently a senior analyst on China for the Department of Defense and is presently the Principal Threat Intelligence Officer for Mandiant. He knows the country and the language, and has been studying and writing on the Chinese Civil War for many years, including recently The Third Chinese Revolutionary Civil War.
Edwin Pak-Wah Leung, who wrote the first edition, is one of the leading scholars on Modern China more generally and the Chinese Civil War in particular. He has taught at the University of Hong Kong, Peking University, and Columbia University among others. He has also published numerous articles and books, the most recent being Managing China's Modernization.

The Chinese Civil War, which lasted several years or several decades, depending on how you define it, was one of the most momentous wars of the 20th century for it determined the fate of the world's most populous country, and was bitterly fought with millions of combatants involved and hundreds of millions of civilians affected. More to the point, it was won by the Chinese Communist Party under Mao Zedong, who imposed Communist rule, while the Nationalists retreated to Taiwan. It also heated up the Cold War for quite some time, as the Communists were supported by the Soviet Union and the Nationalists by the United States.

This second edition of the Historical Dictionary of the Chinese Civil War studies the longer, broader war and its chronology carefully tracks the major events. The introduction then provides a broad overview, describing the contending forces, and showing how the Communists come out on top. The details, and these are crucial, are laid out in over 200 cross-referenced dictionary entries dealing with the opposing forces and parties, the major campaigns and battles, the Long March, and of course the leadership on both sides. This book, one of few such in English, provides a very solid basis for study, but that can be accomplished more effectively by consulting the titles listed in an extensive bibliography.