Skip navigation
America's Response to China
Book

America's Response to China

A History of Sino-American Relations

Columbia UP, 2000 more...

auto-generated audio
auto-generated audio

Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • For Beginners
  • Eloquent

Recommendation

Foreign relations historian Warren I. Cohen does a masterly job of condensing more than 200 years of Sino-American history (up to the Clinton administration, so not including today’s complex fiscal ties) into a brief, readable book. For the most part, his approach is factual and reportorial – Cohen avoids grand sweeps of theory and interpretation. However, to the untrained eye, this book may seem quite confusing: Cohen uses the Wade-Giles system of romanizing Chinese characters, rather than the more familiar pinyin system, and his organization of historic material is only very roughly chronological. Readers will nonetheless acquire a strong sense of the important themes, the major evolutionary stages and the prominent figures involved in the development of Sino-U.S. relations. getAbstract recommends this retrospective account to anyone with a professional, non-academic interest in the history of America’s relationship with China.

Take-Aways

  • U.S. demand for Chinese goods led to the development of a bilateral trading relationship in the mid-18th century.
  • Initially, China dictated trade relations, and the U.S. and Britain complied.
  • After the Opium Wars devastated China’s society, Britain and the U.S. seized control of its economy. The West subjected a weakened China to a number of unfair treaties.

About the Author

Warren I. Cohen is an historian of America’s foreign relations. He specializes in U.S. relations with East Asia.


More on this topic

Learners who read this summary also read