Wu Tingfang (1842-1922) was a contemporary of Li Hongzhang, Yuan Shikai, Hei and Sun Yixian (Sun Yat-sen), all of whom were involved in China's attempt at reform and modernization in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. During his time, Wu was a prominent political figure, participating actively in public service and political activities in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Guangzhou. This book is a biography of Wu, and sheds considerable light on a crucial period in Chinese history.

This is a striking, original portrait of the Chinese Six Companies (Zhonghua huiguan), or Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, the most prominent support organization for Chinese immigrants in the U.S. in the late nineteenth century. As a federation of "native-place associations" (huiguan) in California, the Six Companies responded to racist acts and legislation by organizing immigrant communities and employing effective diplomatic strategies against exclusion. Yucheng Qin substantiates recent arguments that Chinese immigrants were resourceful in fighting for their rights and, more importantly, he argues that through the Six Companies they created a political rhetoric and civic agenda that were then officially adopted by Qing court officials, who at first were unprepared for modern diplomacy. Out of necessity, these officials turned to the Six Companies for assistance and would in time adopt the tone and format of its programs during China’s turbulent transition from a tributary system to that of a modern nation-state. Eventually the Six Companies and Qing diplomats were defeated by a coalition of anti-Chinese interest groups, but their struggle produced a template for modern Chinese nationalism—a political identity that transcends native place—in nineteenth-century America. By redirecting our gaze beyond China to the Six Companies in California and back again, Yucheng Qin redefines the historical significance of the huiguan. The ingenuity of his approach lies in his close attention to the transnational experience of the Six Companies, which provides a feasible framework for linking its diplomatic activism with Chinese history as well as the history of Chinese Americans and Sino-American relations. The Diplomacy of Nationalism enlarges our view of the immigrant experience of Chinese in the U.S. by examining early Sino-American relations through the structure of Six Companies diplomacy as well as providing a better understanding of modern Chinese nationalism.

This is the most comprehensive and up-to-date reference work on Asian Americans, comprising three volumes that address a broad range of topics on various Asian and Pacific Islander American groups from 1848 to the present day. This three-volume work represents a leading reference resource for Asian American studies that gives students, researchers, librarians, teachers, and other interested readers the ability to easily locate accurate, up-to-date information about Asian ethnic groups, historical and contemporary events, important policies, and notable individuals. Written by leading scholars in their fields of expertise and authorities in diverse professions, the entries devote attention to diverse Asian and Pacific Islander American groups as well as the roles of women, distinct socioeconomic classes, Asian American political and social movements, and race relations involving Asian Americans.

Drawing on historiography of the Japanese occupation in the Chinese, Japanese, and English languages, this book examines the politics of the Manchukuo puppet state from the angle of notable Chinese who cooperated with the Japanese military and headed its government institutions. The war in Asia between 1931 and 1945, and particularly the early years of the conflict from 1931 to 1937, is a topic of world history that is often glossed over or misinterpreted. Much of the research and public opinion on this period in China, Japan, and the West deem these Chinese figures to be traitors, particles of Japanese colonialism, and collaborators under occupation. In contrast, this book highlights the importance of analyzing the national ideas of Manchukuo’s Chinese government leaders as a method of understanding Manchukuo’s operating mechanisms, Sino-Japanese interactions, and China’s turbulent history in the early twentieth century. Chinese Government Leaders in Manchukuo, 1931-1937 fills a gap in this research and is an ideal resource for scholars studying wartime Asia and Europe, as well as non-specialist readers who are interested in collaboration in general.

Theosophy across Boundaries brings a global history approach to the study of esotericism, highlighting the important role of Theosophy in the general histories of religion, science, philosophy, art, and politics. The first half of the book consists of seven perspectives on the activities of the Theosophical Society in very different regional contexts, ranging from India, Vietnam, China, and Japan to Victorian Britain and Israel, shedding new light on the entanglement of "Western" and "Oriental" ideas around 1900. The second half explores specific cultural influences that Theosophy exerted in the spheres of literature, art, and politics, using case studies from Sri Lanka, Burma, India, Japan, Ireland, Germany, and Russia. The examples clearly show that Theosophy was part of a truly global movement, thus providing an outstanding example of the complex entanglements of the global religious history of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Laurits Andersen was a Danish tobacco entrepreneur and prominent businessman in China from the 1880s until his death in 1928. He was the manager of the American trading firm Mustard & Co. in Shanghai, introducing machine-produced cigarettes to the Chinese market in the late 1800s, at a time when cigarettes were gaining enormous popularity elsewhere in the world. He attained late fame in his native Denmark when shortly before his death he donated a large sum of money to the National Museum, which he had visited frequently as a boy. Laurits Andersen was born in a small village near Elsinore, Denmark, in 1849, and grew up in Copenhagen where he worked as an apprentice at a machine works. From 1870, he lived in East Asia, experiencing wars and revolutions and forming close bonds with the political elite in Imperial China. Laurits Andersen is a role model for later generations, displaying the courage to seek ones fortunes overseas, and showing that with drive, diligence, and willpower, and a preparedness to venture down untrodden paths, one can achieve ambitious goals.

A study of the first three decades of British rule in Hong Kong, focusing on the troubled and controversial process of establishing a British colony at Hong Kong and on the reception of British rule by people in the region.