Dissertation Information for Thomas J. MillarNAME:
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SCHOOL: ADVISORS: COMMITTEE MEMBERS: MPACT Status: Fully Complete Title: Americans and the issue of China: The passion and dispassion of American opinions about China, 1930 to 1944 Abstract: Many historians of Sino-American relations claim that, during the 1930s and 1940s, romantic thinking about China led to an "irrational" devotion to the continued existence of a mythical, Americanized version of China. In contrast, I argue that many Americans were ambivalent about China and that opinions about U.S. China policy differed greatly and were often more "realistic" than sentimental. In addition, I contend that, except for a remarkable harmonious interlude during World War II, attachment to China was neither universal nor deep. When confronted with the unfortunate developments in China in the 1930s and 1940s, American commentators variously drew on a mixed but shared well of historical images about China and were often as dismissive and cynically noncommittal as they were sentimental. Racism and racially based images of the Chinese also shaped white Americans' thinking about China during the 1930s and 1940s, whether they thought of China as a friend or foe. What Americans did agree on was a desire to see a New China emerge--a modern, democratic, and progressive China. However, ideological differences over the meanings of "democracy," "progress," and "modernity" led to widely differing opinions over Chinese affairs. For instance, Henry Luce's high modernist celebration of Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang differed markedly from Edgar Snow's sympathetic portrait of Mao and the Chinese Communists, while neither Luce's nor Snow's views matched Pearl Buck's populist vision, which described the Chinese people as the essential carriers of social democracy. |
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