num_pages: 704
description: A remarkable history of the two-centuries-old relationship between the United States and China from the Revolutionary War to the present dayFrom the clipper ships that ventured to Canton hauling cargos of American ginseng to swap Chinese tea to the US warships facing off against China's growing navy in the South China Sea from the Yankee missionaries who brought Christianity and education to China to the Chinese who built the American West the United States and China have always been dramatically intertwined. For more than two centuries American and Chinese statesmen merchants missionaries and adventurers men and women have profoundly influenced the fate of these nations. While we tend to think of America's ties with China as starting in 1972 with the visit of President Richard Nixon to China the patternsrapturous enchantment followed by angry disillusionmentwere set in motion hundreds of years earlier.Drawing on personal letters diaries memoirs government documents and contemporary news reports John Pomfret reconstructs the surprising tragic and marvelous ways Americans and Chinese have engaged with one another through the centuries. A fascinating and thrilling account The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom is also an indispensable book for understanding the most importantand often the most perplexingrelationship between any two countries in the world.--us.macmillan.com
language: English
title: The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present
publisher: Henry Holt and Co.