Bridging the Pacific: Three Generations of Chinese Historians in the United States, 1945-2008

Abstract

In the United States the study of modern Chinese history is a relatively young academic field. Prior to World War II, China studies or Sinology was for the most part centered in Europe and focused on the pre-Qing period, with emphasis on dynasty history, classic literature, linguistics, and philosophy. Modern China as a field of historical study mainly developed after World War II. The American involvement in the Pacific War, the emergence of postwar China as a nominal world power, America's “loss of China” to communism, the Korean War, and the mystery of Mao's China all contributed to increasing American interest in China, particularly in recent Chinese history. Such interest arose not just out of curiosity, but was also derived from the practical need to understand China and comprehend the essence of the “who lost China” debate in the early 1950s. Thus despite the attack on America's “China hands” in the McCarthy era, modern China as a field in history was established in the immediate postwar era, and it has developed robustly ever since. Today, one can get a sense of the status of the field by glancing over the annual conference programs of the Association for Asian Studies. Panels on modern China at the annual meetings have been described by some Asianists as “dominating” and “disproportional.”