Overview

The Cold War conflict between the United States and the People's Republic of China did not only encompass political, military, diplomatic, and economic clashes. The two powers also confronted each other on the cultural front. Despite a long history of extensive and mostly constructive cultural interactions, the two nations cut off existing ties in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and established new relationships aimed at attacking and isolating each other. Even after Beijing and Washington permitted cultural exchange as part of their effort to normalize diplomatic relations in the 1970s, the weaponization of cultural interactions continued. Hongshan Li provides a groundbreaking account of the confrontation between the United States and the People's Republic of China on the Cold War's cultural front. He investigates the origins, evolution, and significance of the role of cultural interactions in the shifting relations between the United States and the PRC from the late 1940s through the late 1970s. Li demonstrates that the drastic transformation of U.S.-China cultural interactions not only altered the course of Sino-American cultural relations but also shaped the Cold War experience of the two peoples. Fighting on the Cultural Front examines topics such as competition and conflicts over Chinese students and scholars stranded in the United States, maneuvers on the authorization of journalistic exchanges, the establishment of Taiwan as a cultural bastion, and Beijing's promotion of its revolutionary ideology through individual U.S. citizens, particularly African Americans. This important book offers a new lens on the history of U.S.-China relations and the cultural side of the global Cold War.

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9780231207041

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Reviews

Beautifully rich with details and prodigiously sourced, Fighting on the Cultural Front tells the complex history of Cold War cultural interactions between Maoist China and the United States, moving seamlessly from the machinations of leaders and politicians to the personal interactions of travelers and activists. A very important and much-needed contribution to our understanding of Cold War politics and culture. -- Fabio Lanza, author, <i>The End of Concern: Maoist China, Activism, and Asian Studies</i> Instead of a clash of civilizations, the key to understanding Sino-American relations is through cultural differences and confrontations. Through careful examinations of the extraordinary history of cultural battles between China and the United States during the Cold War era, this book tells us why cultures matter so much in the diplomatic front between the Chinese and Americans. Everyone who cares about the history and future of Sino-American relations should read this book. -- Xu Guoqi, author, <i>Chinese and Americans: A Shared History</i> Meticulously researched and based in large part on heretofore rarely explored archival materials, Fighting on the Cultural Front fills a major gap in our understanding of US-China relations. It focuses on cultural, people-to-people, and nonofficial relations, and in so doing provides a powerful and comprehensive analysis relevant not only for the Cold War era but for today as well. A must-read for anyone attentive to the world’s most consequential bilateral relationship. -- Hanchao Lu, Georgia Institute of Technology A groundbreaking study of the cultural front of the Cold War between the United States and China from the late 1940s to the late 1970s. Hongshan Li has provided an engaging and extensive account on this very important but long-neglected subject. This superb book offers new insights about the significant role of the cultural Cold War in shaping Sino-American cultural relations and its lingering effects today. -- Shuhua Fan, author of <i>The Harvard-Yenching Institute and Cultural Engineering: Remaking the Humanities in China, 1924–1951</i>

Beautifully rich with details and prodigiously sourced, Fighting on the Cultural Front tells the complex history of Cold War cultural interactions between Maoist China and the United States, moving seamlessly from the machinations of leaders and politicians to the personal interactions of travelers and activists. A very important and much-needed contribution to our understanding of Cold War politics and culture. -- Fabio Lanza, author, <i>The End of Concern: Maoist China, Activism, and Asian Studies</i> Instead of a clash of civilizations, the key to understanding Sino-American relations is through cultural differences and confrontations. Through careful examinations of the extraordinary history of cultural battles between China and the United States during the Cold War era, this book tells us why cultures matter so much in the diplomatic front between the Chinese and Americans. Everyone who cares about the history and future of Sino-American relations should read this book. -- Xu Guoqi, author, <i>Chinese and Americans: A Shared History</i>

Author Information

Hongshan Li is professor of history at Kent State University. He is the author of U.S.-China Educational Exchange: State, Society, and Intercultural Relations, 1905–1950 (2008) and a coeditor of Image, Perception, and the Making of U.S.-China Relations (1998) and China and the United States: A New Cold War History (1997).

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