New York before Chinatown
Subtitle: Orientalism and the Shaping of American Culture, 1776-1882
Edition: New Ed edition
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press; Johns Hopkins University Press
Published: August 22, 2001
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 416
ISBN-13: 9780801867941
Subjects: American history: c 1500 to c 1800; American history: c 1800 to c 1900; History of ideas, intellectual history; Public opinion & polls; Social groups & communities; Social history; c 1700 to c 1800; c 1800 to c 1900; Sociology; History; History: American; China; USA; Minority Studies - Ethnic American; United States - General; History / United States / General; New York City
First sentence: The use of Chinese things, ideas, and people in the United States, in various imagined and real forms, has been instrumental in forming this nation's cultural identity.
Description: "From George Washington's desire (in the heat of the Revolutionary War) for a proper set of Chinese porcelains for afternoon tea, to the lives of Chinese-Irish couples in the 1830s, to the commercial success of Chang and Eng (the "Siamese Twins"), to rising fears of "heathen Chinee," New York before Chinatown offers a provocative look at the role Chinese people, things, and ideas played in the fashioning of American culture and politics."--BOOK JACKET.

"Piecing together various historical fragments and anecdotes from the years before Chinatown emerged in the late 1870s, historian John Kuo Wei Tchen redraws Manhattan's historical landscape and broadens our understanding of the role of port cultures in the making of American identities."--BOOK JACKET.