Asia First
China and the Making of Modern American Conservatism
- Contents
- Review Quotes
Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Up from Isolationism: The Conservative Dilemma and the Chinese Solution
2 No Such Thing: The China Lobby
3 Firefights: China’s Meanings after the Korean War
4 Onward, Christian Soldiers: The John Birch Society
5 The New Normal: Asia First Realpolitik
Conclusion
Notes
Index
Review Quotes
The American Historical Review
"Mao convincingly maintains that persuading Republicans to adopt the “Asia First” policy allowed conservatives to succeed in factional struggles within the GOP and then achieve electoral victory against Democrats. The strategy of “Asian First,” she explains, is too often only aligned with McCarthyism or the post-1949 debate over “who lost China,” but ran significantly deeper and longer as Cold War hot spots consistently emerged in Asia. Mao is very effective in her study of U.S. political figures, their perspectives on China, and how these contributed to their ability to achieve their own and their party’s ambitions. Asia First urges us to move beyond the accepted wisdom about theGMD, Chinese Americans, and the Republican Party to unpack the myriad variations and implications of political support for the Republic of China in the U.S. during the Cold War."
Choice
"Recommended."
H-Diplo
"Asia First is a welcome addition to the small (though slowly growing) historiography of how foreign policy shaped the American conservative movement. [It] is a book which sets itself apart from the historiography and makes the reader think about how and why American conservative foreign policy transitioned from isolationist to internationalist and interventionist....177 meticulously researched pages."
Journal of American History
"Mao deftly chronicles the emergence of late twentieth-century conservative internationalism within the Republican party. As she explains, conservative internationalism evolved out of a zealous 'Asia First' variant of early Cold War–era anticommunism that put China at the heart of an activist foreign policy. Overall, Mao contributes a well-argued and new perspective on the rise of the Republican Right."
Journal of Asian Studies
"In this elegantly constructed volume, Mao shows how it was precisely by rearticulating the relationship between the United States and China that the conservative New Right emerged in the immediate postwar period and eventually developed into the most enduring political movement of the twentieth century. Asia First will be an enlightening read for anyone interested in twentieth-century US history, but it should also be read widely among scholars of Asia. In sum, Asia First offers illuminating insights into the role of China as a factor in global and domestic US politics but also into the way 'China' functioned as a blank sheet of paper where US (and Taiwanese) politicians, businessmen, and maybe even scholars, could write whatever suited their political needs."
Pacific Historical Review
"Asia First contains important new insights into the development of the postwar Republican Party and its approach to foreign policy."
David F. Schmitz, Whitman College
“With this exceptional book, Mao provides a nuanced, persuasive analysis of how foreign policy issues symbolically linked familiar conservative positions to new concerns during the post-World War II period. Presenting the ideology of the Asia First movement in an effective and compelling manner, Mao seamlessly combines the “cultural turn” approach to studying international relations together with traditional questions and issues to demonstrate how conservative leaders in the 1950s and 1960s forged a unified view on China that infused new energy and ideas into postwar conservatism.”
Christopher Jespersen, University of North Georgia
“Asia First is a terrific contribution to the literature on Sino-American relations, with its brilliant exploration of China’s centrality to conservative American politics in the 1950s and 1960s. Mao is not only original but rather ingenious in how she takes characters, such as Alfred Kohlberg, Robert Welch, and Barry Goldwater, and uses them as lenses through which to view the larger phenomenon of China in American political culture in the decades after World War II.”
Michael Schaller, University of Arizona
"With Asia First, Mao has produced a vivid roadmap that demonstrates how politicians and pundits stoking fears of China and Communism promoted the rise of American conservatism from the era of McCarthy through Reagan. Along the way, she explores the crucial link between domestic and foreign policies.”
Akira Iriye, Harvard University
“Mao offers an important new study of post-1945 American conservatism. Whereas most writers have characterized Cold War era conservatives as unilateralists or isolationists, Mao suggests that many of them were willing to embrace internationalism in Asia. The reason, she suggests, is because conservative politicians and publicists had embraced a vision of U.S.-China cooperation that appeared threatened by the rise of Communist China. China thus served as the key to the shift in conservatism from isolationism to internationalism (what the author calls "Asia First internationalism"). This is an intriguing thesis, which the author buttresses on the basis of massive research. Asia First is a critical contribution to the study of Cold-War era American opinion.”
Gordon H. Chang, Stanford University
“How did conservatives move from isolationism after World War II to militant anti-communist internationalism through the Cold War era? The “China Question” had lots to do with the shift, according to this original look at the underpinnings and politics of modern conservative foreign policy. Partisanship, ideology, geopolitical calculation, and personality all played roles. Asia First is a valuable and long-overdue study of the rise of conservative internationalism.”
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Asian Studies: East Asia
History: American History | General History
Political Science: American Government and Politics
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