A 1944 review said "it deals largely with military affairs" but "reaches into many of the social, economic and psychological aspects of the life of the whole people as they meet the relentless demands of the struggle.

Like Edgar Snow, she met the future leaders of Communist China when they were living in rural isolation.

She also witnessed the Xi'an Incident and gives her own account of it in this book, along with her view of He Long, Chu Teh (Zhu De) and Mao.

She gives a poignant account of how she wanted to adopt a Chinese boy who had served as her orderly, and to secure a good education for him.

She takes an individual and non-ideological view, noting merit where she sees it, including among captured Japanese who had turned against the war.