Sarah C. Paine

Sarah C. Paine (in publications, S. C. M. Paine) is a professor of strategy and policy at the U.S. Naval War College located in Newport, Rhode Island. She has written or co-edited several books on naval policy and related affairs, and subjects of particular interest to the United States Navy or Defense. Other works she has authored concern the political and military history of East Asia, particularly China, during the modern era.

Her 2012 award-winning book is an original and lively, as well as densely packed, view of the "nested wars" in early-twentieth-century East Asia. She presents the continuing conflicts there as three different wars, for a while carried on simultaneously. The war-within-a-war perspective involved: the long Chinese Civil War, here 1911–1949; the Second Sino-Japanese War, here 1931–1945; and the Second World War, here 1941–1945.

The work covers ground in some detail that was previously rather neglected in the history literature written in English.

She holds the following degrees:

• Ph.D. Russian and Chinese history, Columbia University.
• M.I.A. Columbia University School for International and Public Affairs with certificates from both the Russian and East Asian institutes.
• M.A. Russian Language, Middlebury College Russian School.
• B.A. Special concentration in Latin American Studies, Harvard University.

Year-long language programs completed at:

• Stanford Center, Taipei, Taiwan.
• Taipei Language Institute, Taipei, Taiwan.
• International Christian University, Tokyo, Japan.

She has spent over eight years abroad, residing for several year-long stays in Taiwan and Japan, and a year each in China, Russia, and Australia. Her published works are based in part on archival research in these countries.

Author

• The Wars for Asia 1911–1949 (Cambridge University Press, 2012). 2012 Winner of the PROSE award for European & World History and longlisted for the Lionel Gelber prize.
• The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895: Power, Perceptions, and Primacy (Cambridge University Press, 2003).
• Imperial Rivals: China, Russia, and Their Disputed Frontier, 1858–1924 (M.E. Sharpe, 1996). Winner of the 1997 Barbara Jelavich Book Prize.

Co-author with Bruce A. Elleman:

• Modern China: Continuity and Change, 1644 to the Present (Prentice Hall, 2010).

Editor

• Nation Building, State Building and Economic Development: Case Studies and Comparisons (M.E. Sharpe, 2010).

Co-editor with Bruce A. Elleman:

• Naval Power and Expeditionary Warfare: Peripheral Campaigns and New Theatres of Naval Warfare (Routledge, 2011).
• Naval Coalition Warfare: From the Napoleonic War to Operation Iraqi Freedom (Routledge, 2008).
• Naval Blockades and Seapower: Strategies and Counter-Strategies 1805–2005 (Routledge, 2005).

• "2012 Winner of the PROSE award for European & World History". Association of American Publishers. 
• Medley, Mark (4 February 2013). "Lionel Gelber Prize longlist revealed". National Post. 
• "Barbara Jelavich Book Prize". Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies.