Dolan's new work strives to show that the long forgotten record of early Sino-American relations impacts the international relations of the two countries today. In a few hundred pages, Dolin unfolds a story of the trade between the most recent country in America, trying to emerge onto the world stage shortly after birth, and the ancient society of the Middle Kingdom.
Entertaining, informative and highly readable book... This remarkably complex story involving trade, ecology, ship design, international politics and cultural conflict, not to mention captains, merchants, naval architects, Chinese mandarins and generals is remarkably well told by Mr. Dolin, who is in complete command of the material. If a major purpose of history is to help us understand the present, the history of the early China trade is essential to understanding today's China as it resumes its place among the foremost nations of the world. You couldn't find a better place to start than When America First Met China.”
[W]onderfully accessible.... An ideal book for general readers in popular history or with a historical interest in China's influence on the American economy and general relations between the two countries—past and present.
Eric Jay Dolin is one of our very finest popular historians, a formidable scholar and stylist of uncommon grace. It's all here: tea, opium, raffish characters galore. Not only has Dolin filled a yawning gap in the historical literature; he has initiated a dramatic conversation about perhaps the most significant transcontinental contest of the twenty-first century.
I had not known about the exploits described in Eric Jay Dolin's fascinating book, but now that I do I am impressed by their importance and see current affairs in a new light. Anyone interested in China's ambitions, memories, and sensitivities will be glad to have read this book.
Eric Jay Dolin's engagingly paced narrative of the early years in the China-America relationship made me smile as I recognized the modern reality in this old tale of the odd couple of statecraft. When America First Met China, in fascinating ways tells us much about who we are today.”
Authoritative… Considering that the US has long held a highly positive opinion of itself, it's a delight to read to that it had company in China, which believed it was the ‘Middle Kingdom,’ below heaven but above all the other parts of the world.
Dolan's new work strives to show that the long forgotten record of early Sino-American relations impacts the international relations of the two countries today. In a few hundred pages, Dolin unfolds a story of the trade between the most recent country in America, trying to emerge onto the world stage shortly after birth, and the ancient society of the Middle Kingdom.
Entertaining, informative and highly readable book... This remarkably complex story involving trade, ecology, ship design, international politics and cultural conflict, not to mention captains, merchants, naval architects, Chinese mandarins and generals is remarkably well told by Mr. Dolin, who is in complete command of the material. If a major purpose of history is to help us understand the present, the history of the early China trade is essential to understanding today's China as it resumes its place among the foremost nations of the world. You couldn't find a better place to start than When America First Met China.
In 1784, the Empress of China became the first ship to set sail for Canton under the American flag. The journey was celebrated as an affirmation of the new country’s independence from Britain. Previously, all trade with the Far East had been tightly controlled by the British East India Company—it was no accident that the commodity dumped in Boston Harbor was tea. Historian Dolin (Fur, Fortune, and Empire) argues for the centrality of the China trade in the early days of the republic. Despite that, at the time of American independence, “no more than a handful of colonists… had ever set foot in China,” the first few decades saw more than 600 American trading missions and “as much as one-tenth to one-fifth of all the items in many early nineteenth-century homes in Boston and Salem came from China.” This fast-moving but superficial overview focuses on intriguing anecdotes and personal vignettes, featuring colorful subjects such as pirates, drug runners, and slave traders, as well as those engaged in more salubrious pursuits. But while entertaining, Dolin fails to deliver a deeper analysis of early relations between the two nations. 16 pages of color and 83 b&w illus.; map. Agent: Russell Galen, Scovil Galen, Ghosh Literary Agency. (Sept.).
"Timely…Readers of Dolin’s award-winning books—Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America (2007) and Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America (2010)—will recognize in this newest work his distinctive style and his eye for iconic figures and vivid anecdotes…. Dolin is fully in his element when taking readers through an expert, richly anecdotal discussion of various intertwined China-related trades—whaling, sea skins, fur, tea, and opium."
"Eric Jay Dolin has a special talent for unearthing the fascinating but forgotten origins of our current cultural obsessions and now hes done it again. This fast-paced and deeply researched book is a must-read for anyone interested in Americas long history of competition and cooperation with China."
"A tantalizing high-sea yarn of fast-running clippers and murderous pirates and a profound meditation on an international relationship that still absorbs our attention today. Fresh, gripping, pelagically capacious."
"Eric Jay Dolin... has produced another in a series of accessible, highly readable histories detailing the early adventures and impassioned drive that characterized early enterprise in America and set a path for what was to follow... Interesting, informative and entertaining."
"Lively biographical sketches, intriguing anecdotes and accounts of curious incidents… Dolin wrings so much drama, interest and humor out of this early period of U.S.-China relations. And what makes his achievement more notable still is that he makes the period come alive without turning the book into one devoted exclusively to opium, the topic that has the clearest dramatic potential and has gotten the most attention in works on the era."
"Fascinating, compelling, and engrossing."
"Fascinating and entertaining... masterful history... His work is well-researched, rich in illustrations and full of life."
"A diligent researcher… Dolin has uncovered some fascinating nuggets about the history of US-China trade."
"This sweeping popular history... brews up a rich and satisfying narrative of the exotic intersection of the silk, tea, and opium trade and the missionary zeal that characterized America’s engagement with the still mysterious ‘Middle Kingdom’ in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. With a flair for dramatic and fast-paced storytelling, Dolin provides the reader with nuanced insights into everything from pirates, the world-changing impact of the silk trade, the British-Chinese Opium War of the 1840s, and the fearlessness (and naïveté) of the early missionaries to good old-fashioned tales of adventure on the high seas."
"A smart, riveting history of what has become the most important bilateral relationship in the world.... An all-around outstanding work of maritime history."
"Master storyteller Eric Jay Dolin brings to life the American genius for commerce and its essential connection to how the nation grew... this is a timely and well-told tale."
This highly accessible book takes readers to 1784 when one of the newest countries in the world met one of the oldest. The ship Empress of China sailed from post-revolutionary New York to Guangzhou, thus becoming the first American ship to trade with China, beginning a relationship that helped strengthen America's emerging economy. Dolin (Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America) reveals how those early dealings still echo in American-Chinese relations. He pointedly suggests that Americans today generally don't understand Chinese culture, much as those first American merchants did not. Dolin presents many colorful stories of the rapidly growing China trade that followed that first commercial encounter, of the tremendous popularity of Chinese decorative arts (think of the word "china" as coming to mean porcelain) in American households, and the tremendous consequences of the opium trade with the West. He closes by summarizing China's continued role as a trading partner whose products significantly influence American life. VERDICT An ideal book for general readers in popular history or with a historical interest in China's influence on the U.S. economy and general relations between the two countries—past and present.—Susan G. Baird, formerly with Oak Lawn P.L., IL
The author of Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America (2010) returns with the story of America's first voyages to the Middle Kingdom, where Americans and Chinese looked at each other with wonder, alarm and calculation. Dolin begins at the end of the American Revolution. With America's relationship with England in ruins, the country looked to the Far East. On July 22, 1784, the Empress of China sailed into the Pearl River in China. The author, whose grasp of the intricacies of international trade is firm, proceeds confidently and skillfully through a complex narrative. He describes the beginnings of trade with China, examines the mystery of silkworms, and shows how China established Canton as the center for their trade with the West, whose residents craved silk but also tea (and serving sets). Soon, thousands of vessels--British and American--were sailing on the Pearl, and the most profitable commodity swiftly became opium. Everyone loved it, especially the English and the Chinese, and Americans profited handsomely from the trade. Dolin introduces us to some important American names--including Robert Morris, John Ledyard, John Jacob Astor, Robert Forbes, Harriet Low--and he relates the adventures of the first Chinese to come to America, who became sort of carnival attractions. The author also describes the perils of the voyage, the designs of the ships (and the rise and fall of the clipper ship) and the American involvement in the Opium War. A rich, highly readable examination of the seeds of poppies, trade, greed, grandeur and an international partnership that remains uneasy and perilous.
