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American Images of China, 1931-1949. T. Christopher Jespersen. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996. $39.50 cloth.
The 1989 Tiananmen Massacre not only spawned a cottage industry in accounts of the event, but rehashed the old debate of why Americans and their leaders have consistently misperceived China. With Tiananmen in mind, Jespersen attempts to explain why Americans throughout their history have viewed China, in part, with "naivete, paternalism, and awe" and how America's China images have influenced American foreign policy. The answer, he argues, is found in domestic sources alone. The mass media, popular culture and the work of Chinese relief agencies, have provided the cultural and political contexts that either facilitated or limited foreign policy (xv).
Jespersen concentrates on the 1931-1949 period because he contends...