Diana Lary is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. She completed both her degree and PhD at the University of London. She has spent several years in China, the first time teaching English (1964-5) and later working as the resident sinologist in the Canadian Embassy in Beijing (1985-7). As a Professor in Canada, Lary has focussed on modern China, in particular on the impact of warfare on Chinese society. She also works on Chinese migration, within China and outside the country. She has travelled extensively in Asia and spent long periods doing research in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

China's Civil War is the first book of its kind to offer a social history in English of the Civil War in 1945-9 that brought the Chinese Communist Party to power. Integrating history and memory, it surveys a period of intense upheaval and chaos to show how the Communist Party and its armies succeeded in overthrowing the Nationalist government to bring political and social revolution to China. Drawing from a collection of biographies, memoirs, illustrations and oral histories, Diana Lary gives a voice to those who experienced the war first-hand, exemplifying the direct effects of warfare - the separations and divisions, the exiles and losses, and the social upheaval that resulted from the conflict. Lary explores the long-term impact on Chinese societies on the Mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong, which have all diverged far from pre-war Chinese society.