War, Race, and Culture
Writing history, the systematic effort to understand the human past, is a demanding intellectual endeavor. For historian Gordon H. Chang, it has also been a personal and moral enterprise intimately connected to his commitment to realizing a better world. This career-spanning anthology brings together significant essays, developing conversations across his broad-ranging research interests and personal history and engaging a range of topics, from diplomatic history and Asian American history to art history.
The book begins with a preface that reflects on the rise of Asian American studies as a field and the author's own scholarly trajectory. Each essay is accompanied by new headnotes that provide context. Essays examine the many ways that race, especially regarding Asian Americans, connects important historical episodes and social issues. Themes of geopolitical conflict, race, and transnational methods link writing produced over several decades, illustrating the arc of an intellectual career and the development of the field of Asian American studies. Ultimately, this book highlights Chang's abiding interest in providing historical context for issues facing Asian Americans, particularly during a time of rising geopolitical tensions and anti-Asian violence.
—Evelyn Hu-Dehart, Brown University
"Gordon Chang's distinguished career places him in the first rank of historians in so many areas. His scholarship is provocative within diplomatic, immigration, Asian American, and labor history, and discerning when it turns to the history of art. One virtue of this sparkling collection of essays is that it suggests how these wide-ranging interests intersect and enrich each other."
—David Roediger, author of How Race Survived US History: From Settlement and Slavery to The Eclipse of Post-Racialism
"Gordon Chang has given us a profound gift with this collection of essays written across a distinguished career. His major scholarly pursuits in U.S. diplomatic history, Asian American history, and art history may seem unusual in their diversity, but they are tied together by a lifetime of personal and academic interest in China's impact on America and the Chinese in America. The book is a reminder to some, an introduction to others, to the work of an exemplary humanist."
—Mae Ngai, author of The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics
"In this wide-ranging and beautifully-written collection, Gordon H. Chang makes a powerful case for the intersectionality of War, Race, and Culture, particularly as they impact Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs). With invigorating curiosity and brilliant analysis, Chang blends autobiography with politics, art, and history into a unified whole which illuminates our place in the world and gives us new ways to think about the future."
—David Henry Hwang, playwright, author of Yellow Face and M. Butterfly
