Standard tropes of publishing a book is it has to answer the question why did you write about this topic in the question in the first place . You are supposed to have a thoughtful answer about how you had a lifelong interest in this topic and you always dreamed about exploring it more deeply. This topic was proposed to me by my publisher. I had a lifelong interest in china or almost a lifelong interest, having studied it, studied chinese going back many years and how they lived there a few years, and travels even today i go almost every year but my publisher actually finished my previous book and asked me to pick a year and write a book about it in china. Started looking through years and ive thought about 1938, interesting year in china. 1944, the year kicked out of china by shanghai check but Barbara Tuchman that topic, forever. So i started looking at 1945 until the end of world war ii until the an end of world war ii. It was a good topic. Really truly upset seminole watershed in Am