The Chinese Educational Mission was one of the earliest efforts at educational modernization in China. As part of the Self-Strengthening Movement, the Qing government sent 120 students to New England to live and study for a decade, before they were abruptly summoned home to China in 1881. This book, based upon extensive research in local archives and newspapers, focuses on the experiences of the students during their nine-year stay in the United States. Historians of modern China will find this book highly relevant because of its detailed account of one of the major projects of the Self-Strengthening Movement. To date, there are at most two credible studies in English and Chinese on the Chinese Educational Mission; both are deficient in source citation and tend to dwell on the students' experiences after their return to China rather than during their stay in America. This volume will also appeal to specialists in Asian-American studies, for its comparing and contrasting the experiences of the Chinese students with those of other Chinese in the United States during a period of rising anti-Chinese sentiment, which culminated in the enactment of Chinese Exclusion in 1882. This book offers a slightly different perspective than most other works on the nature of the anti-Chinese movement, which may have been more class-based rather than race-based. The compare and contrast of students from China with those from Japan, which also sent large numbers of students to New England at roughly the same period of time, will be of interest to East Asian comparative historians as well. Edward J. M. Rhoadsis a professor emeretus in history at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author ofChina's Republican Revolution: The Case of Kwangtung, 1895-1913andManchus and Han: Ethnic Relations and Political Power in Late Qing and Early Republican China, 1861-1928. "Rhoads has meticulously constructed the individual and collective histories of the 120 young men and boys sent by a beleaguered late Qing government to live and acquire English and Western knowledge in white New England families, schools and universities. As the vanguard of legions of Chinese students who have studied in the U.S. since, and as contemporaries of the far more numerous Chinese coolies whose paths they never crossed, this compelling study adds a surprising new chapter to early Asian American history." - Evelyn Hu-DeHart, Professor of History and Ethnic Studies; Director, Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America, Brown University

In celebration of the 200th anniversary of Amherst College, a group of scholars and alumni explore the school’s substantial past in this volume. Amherst in the World tells the story of how an institution that was founded to train Protestant ministers began educating new generations of industrialists, bankers, and political leaders with the decline in missionary ambitions after the Civil War. The contributors trace how what was a largely white school throughout the interwar years begins diversifying its student demographics after World War II and the War in Vietnam. The histories told here illuminate how Amherst has contended with slavery, wars, religion, coeducation, science, curriculum, town and gown relations, governance, and funding during its two centuries of existence. Through Amherst’s engagement with educational improvement in light of these historical undulations, it continually affirms both the vitality and the utility of a liberal arts education. Contributions by Martha Saxton, Gary J. Kornblith, David W. Wills, Frederick E. Hoxie, Trent Maxey, Nicholas L. Syrett, Wendy H. Bergoffen, Rick López, Matthew Alexander Randolph, Daniel Levinson Wilk, K. Ian Shin, David S. Reynolds, Jane F. Thrailkill, Julie Dobrow, Richard F. Teichgraeber III, Debby Applegate, Michael E. Jirik, Bruce Laurie, Molly Michelmore, and Christian G. Appy.

>

Garry Winston Trompf (b.1940) in his outstanding academic career has inspired scholars in the fields of Stduies in Religion and the History of Ideals. In this volume his collegues and students critique and expand upon the world of this outstanding academic. The book is divided into four parts, Melanesia, Ancient World Studies, Philosophical and Methodological Considerations and Historiography. Authors address Trompf's research in works such as "The Idea of Historical Recurrence in Western Thought," "Early Christian Historiography" and themes of Melanesian religion that Trompf address in "Payback." No study in the religions of oceania or ideals of millenialism should ignore this critical assessment of Garry Trompf's work.

China and the United States, two massive economic and military powers, cannot avoid engaging with each other. Enjoying what is often termed “the most important bilateral relationship in the world”, the two sometimes cooperate, but often compete, as their interests come into conflict. Both countries are separated not just by the Pacific Ocean, but also by their very different histories, experiences, societies, customs, and outlooks. Non-governmental, unofficial relationships and exchanges are often as important as formal dealings in determining the climate of Sino-American relations. For several decades in the mid-twentieth century, Chinese and Americans were virtually isolated from each other, trapped in icy hostility. Chinese scholars are now making up for lost time. This assortment of essays, most by mainland Chinese academics and students, focuses upon the role of culture – very broadly defined – in Sino-American affairs. Taking a holistic approach, in this collection over thirty authors focus on such topics as the influence of ideology, the impact of geopolitics, the use of rhetoric, soft power, educational encounters and exchanges, immigration, gender, race, identity, literature, television, movies, music, and the press. Cultural factors are, as the authors demonstrate, enormously significant in affecting how Chinese and Americans think about and approach each other, both as individuals and at the state level.

Chinese–American relations are often viewed through the prism of power rivalry and civilization clash. But China and America’s shared history is much more than a catalog of conflicts. Using culture rather than politics or economics as a reference point, Xu Guoqi highlights significant yet neglected cultural exchanges in which China and America have contributed to each other’s national development, building the foundation of what Zhou Enlai called a relationship of “equality and mutual benefit.” Xu begins with the story of Anson Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln’s ambassador to China, and the 120 Chinese students he played a crucial role in bringing to America, inaugurating a program of Chinese international study that continues today. Such educational crosscurrents moved both ways, as is evident in Xu’s profile of the remarkable Ge Kunhua, the Chinese poet who helped spearhead Chinese language teaching in Boston in the 1870s. Xu examines the contributions of two American scholars to Chinese political and educational reform in the twentieth century: the law professor Frank Goodnow, who took part in making the Yuan Shikai government’s constitution; and the philosopher John Dewey, who helped promote Chinese modernization as a visiting scholar at Peking University and elsewhere. Xu also shows that it was Americans who first introduced to China the modern Olympic movement, and that China has used sports ever since to showcase its rise as a global power. These surprising shared traditions between two nations, Xu argues, provide the best roadmap for the future of Sino–American relations.

The First World War was a truely global event that changed the course of history in many participating as well as non-participating countries. In East Asia, the war stimulated the further rise of Japan as the leading power in the region during the war, yet also its radicalization and social protests after 1918. In China and Korea it stimulated nationalist eruptions, demanding freedom and equality for the (semi)colonized countries and the people living within their borders. All in all, the present book offers a consice introduction of the history of the First World War and its impact in East Asia.

This title brings together contributions from around the world that analyse and reflect on the way curriculum is configuring and reconfiguring that world.