Fateful Ties: A Conversation with Author Gordon Chang | Committee of 100
When and Where
-
16/07/2015
5:30 pm-7:30 pm -
Umpqua Bank
450 Sansome Street
San Francisco
CA
94111
United States
(get map)
Event Details
Please come join us for a talk with author Gordon Chang on the launch of his new book Fateful Ties in discussion with Frank Wu. Wine and light appetizers will be served.
About the book:
China has held a special place in the American imagination from colonial times, when Jamestown settlers pursued a passage to the Pacific and Asia. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Americans plied a profitable trade in Chinese wares, sought Chinese laborers to build the West, and prized China’s art and decor. China was revered for its ancient culture but also drew Christian missionaries intent on saving souls in a heathen land. Its vast markets beckoned expansionists, even as its migrants were seen as a “yellow peril” that prompted the earliest immigration restrictions. A staunch ally during World War II, China was a dangerous adversary in the Cold War that followed. In the post-Mao era, Americans again embraced China as a land of inexhaustible opportunity, playing a central role in its economic rise. Fateful Ties draws on literature, art, biography, popular culture, and politics to trace America’s long and varied preoccupation with China.
The book is available for purchase here.
About the Author:
Professor Chang is the Olive H. Palmer Professor in Humanities; Professor of American History; and Director, Center for East Asian Studies. He is a major influence in the pursuit of Chinese American history.
Gordon Chang is a San Francisco East Bay Area native. He attended Princeton University as an undergraduate and received a doctoral degree in history from Stanford University. Now a professor at Stanford, he specializes in the study of America-East Asia relations and Asian American history. Chang is the author of several works including “Chinese American Voices” which he published with Judy Yung and Him Mark Lai and “Asian American Art: 1850-1970.”
About the Moderator:
Frank H. Wu, a Committee of 100 member, was renewed early for a second term as Chancellor & Dean of UC Hastings. He is the author of Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White.