The NYRB China Archive
02.18.88China on My Mind
from New York Review of Books
Almost forty years have passed since John King Fairbank’s first book, The United States and China, was published in 1948. A careful blending of Chinese institutional history with diplomatic history, the book proved immediately popular among...
The NYRB China Archive
05.30.85Mission Impossible
from New York Review of Books
John Hersey’s The Call is an epitaph for 120 years of Protestant missions in China. From 1830 to 1950, the China missions had a steadily growing place in American public sentiment. At the turn of the century, John R. Mott of the Student Volunteer...
The NYRB China Archive
09.27.84
Our Mission in China
from New York Review of Books
This is the bicentennial year for contacts between the United States and China, since it was in 1784 that the merchant ship Empress of China sailed to Canton from New York. It was an auspicious beginning, at least for the American backers of the...
The NYRB China Archive
08.09.73Traveling Light
from New York Review of Books
With the exception of Joseph Kraft’s short work, all the books on China mentioned here have been padded. Barbara Tuchman includes a fascinating historical essay. Galbraith has animadversions on San Francisco, Paris, TWA, and many other matters, and...
The NYRB China Archive
11.16.72A Shameful Tale
from New York Review of Books
On the contents page of the latest issue of Foreign Affairs1 the new shape of American diplomacy is writ large and in italics. In this prestigious house organ of the international affairs establishment—and by coincidence it happens to be its...
The NYRB China Archive
08.21.69Report from the China Sea
from New York Review of Books
Since the Communist victory in 1949 there has been very little contact between Americans and Chinese. Although a tiny community of aging Americans continues to live in Peking, no American, except for Edgar Snow, has traveled widely in the People’s...