Fateful Ties
A History of America's Preoccupation with China
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4155810 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Liu Li-Song (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 103 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 438-440 |
| Publication date | 2016-09-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of American History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8723 • E-ISSN: 1945-2314 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jahist/jaw186 |
| OpenAlex | W4301426708 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
There was China before there was an America, and it is because of China that America came to be” (p. 1). The historian Gordon H. Chang starts his book with this clear and incisive remark, referring not just to the European discovery of America in search of a new water route to China and Asia but also to the essential role of China in defining America's evolving identity. While these arguments have been made by other scholars, they are best researched and articulated in Chang's new book. Fateful Ties provides the most comprehensive and deep analysis of the permeating and persisting role of China in intriguing, defining, and transforming America at every moment of American history. Written at the height of Chang's intellectual power, Fateful Ties represents his decades-long interest in intercultural relations between the United States and China, and it integrates his past research on such broad subjects as art history, intellectual history, race and ethnicity, migration, and foreign relations. As a study of American perceptions of and interactions with China, it will undoubtedly become a classic on this topic, joining Harold R. Isaacs's Scratches on Our Minds (1958), John K. Fairbank's China Perceived (1974), Michel Oksenberg and Robert B. Oxnam's edited collection Dragonand Eagle (1978), Jonathan D. Spence's To Change China (1980), Richard Madsen's China and the American Dream (1994), and Warren I. Cohen's America's Response to China (2010). This book will appeal not just to China specialists. It also significantly contributes to the study of American history. Echoing the cultural turn in American diplomatic history studies pioneered by the influential Asian American scholar Akira Iriye in the 1970s, Fateful Ties is a major milestone in reaffirming the value of intercultural relations in illuminating international politics and diplomacy. It also provides an authoritative case study of orientalism, racism, and imperialism and will be an essential read for students of these broad themes in any national and cultural setting
Appeal · China · Dream · Economic history · History of China · Political science · Power (physics · History · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Law · Psychology
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2024 - 2025 (2) |
| Highly cited | No |