War, Race, and Culture: Journeys in Trans-Pacific and Asian American Histories

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.

Gordon H. Chang is Professor of History and Olive H. Palmer Professor in Humanities at Stanford University and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad (2019) and coeditor of The Chinese and the Iron Road: Building the Transcontinental Railroad (Stanford, 2019), among other books.