Fateful Ties: A Conversation with Professor Gordon H. Chang

If you’re in the Bay Area this week, join the Committee of 100 for a special event on Thursday July 16, 2015 featuring a conversation with Stanford University Professor Gordon Chang, Ph.D.  He will be doing a talk and Q&A on his new book, Fateful Ties: A History of America’s Preoccupation with China.  Committee of 100 member and Dean of Hastings Law School Frank Wu will be moderating.

Light refreshments and wine will be served.

Please RSVP here via the EventBrite Link. Seats are limited, so please RSVP soon.

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.

Professor Gordon H. 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.  He 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.

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. He is writing a book on the Vincent Chin case, and his op-ed discussing the significance of the subject appeared in The New York Times on the thirtieth anniversary of the crime. Other op-eds of his have appeared in the Washington Post, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle,National Law Journal, and Chronicle of Higher Education.