Narratives of Free Trade – The Commercial Cultures of Early US–China Relations

Kendall Johnson is director of the American Studies Programme and associate professor at The University of Hong Kong.

This is an important and necessary book emphasizing the early period of Sino-American interaction. Johnson and his authors reinterpret historical events through the lenses of narrative and literature, showing how the stories people tell about one another become the first drafts of history. This book will change historians' understanding of Chinese- American relations. -- James Fichter, author of So Great a Profit: How the East Indies Trade Transformed Anglo-American Capitalism By mobilizing new and old forms of analysis... and by putting scholars of the United States and China into conversation, the book opens up new vistas for exploration and expands a field that we can expect will continue to grow for some years to come. -- Dael Norwood H-Diplo