Description
Book SynopsisIn the early twentieth century, a good number of college-educated Protestant American women went abroad by taking up missionary careers in teaching, nursing, and medicine. Motoe Sasaki's transnational history of these New Women explores the intersections of gender, modernity, and national identity within the politics of world history.
Trade ReviewIn the 1920s, educated Chinese women increasingly felt called on to contribute to national salvation, even if it meant abandoning the ideals championed by their 'imperialist' American teachers. Sasaki focuses on women's higher education, particularly nursing. Her stimulating conclusion considers how the Cold War erased memories of earlier American and Chinese women's transculturation. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All academic levels/libraries.
-- K. E. Stapleton, State University of New York at Buffalo * CHOICE *
Sasaki's research provides new insights into the complex forces guiding both American missionary women and Chinese New Women across the first half of the twentieth century. The author adds to a growing body of scholarship that challenges critics of cultural imperialism who tend to paint American missionary women as little more than extensions of the nation-state, capitalism, and Western imperialism.... Rich in research and sharp in its analysis, Redemption and Revolution adds to our understanding of the complex and often conflicted relationships American missionary women had with the nation-states they represented abroad.
-- Sarah M. Griffith * American Historical Review *
Sasaki demonstrates that American and Chinese New Women struggled to make sense of how they were markers of their respective nations' progress.
* Journal of American History *
