Description
Book SynopsisA lively account of the brash men who chased their American Dreams all the way to China
Trade Review"John Haddad has written a subtle and spirited book, which takes America's first experiences in China as a means to explore the early years of the United States as an independent nation. This is a book about the magic of money and the ingenious ways that American business grandees reacted to the ever-shifting promises and disappointments of an emerging Asian market. It is also a book about religion, diplomacy, financial systems, arms manufacture, families under stress, ship-building, and opium. It is an absorbing tale, with many contemporary echoes." —Jonathan Spence, author of The Search for Modern China
"America's First Adventure in China is a well written, succinct, and elegant book. Haddad brings a fresh approach to—and makes a convincing case for his characterization of—the American presence in China. He describes how the Americans were isolated individuals acting pretty much on their own and with nothing in the way of state, military, or other institutional support. Their experience—operating in a fog of ignorance about a world to which they had only the most limited access—is significant, and he explains why the American experience diverged from rather than followed on the British model."
—Peter Buck, Senior Lecturer (retired) on the History of Science, Harvard University
Table of Contents Acknowledgments
A Note on the Spelling of Chinese Words
Introduction
1 First Contact: The Voyage of the
Empress of China 2 System Men: The Rise of Perkins and Company
3 All for a Cup of Tea: Finding Goods for the Canton Market
4 Beachhead of God: The First Wave of Missionaries
5 Rising on Smoke: Opium and Identity in Canton
6 Formal Ties: The Caleb Cushing Mission
7 Centrifugal Force: The Spread of People, Goods, Capital, and Ideas
8 Heavenly War: Americans and the Taiping Rebellion
9 Cooperation: Burlingame and the Reinvention of Sino-Western Relations
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
