‘Smoke gets in your eyes’: American writers on the opium issue in China, 1840–1860

Zhen Zou, Purdue University

Abstract

The opium issue in nineteenth-century China was so prevalent that no student of early modern Chinese history could afford to ignore it. It was the direct cause of the first war between China and a Western power, a war that completely changed China's relationship with the outside world. During the 1840s and the 1850s, a number of Americans published books on China. Most of those writers expressed their views on the opium issue. But no one has made specific studies on those Americans' views on the opium issue in China. This dissertation discusses the views and accounts of four Americans on the opium issue in China in the mid-nineteenth century. The first one is Henrietta Hall Shuck, the first female American missionary to China, whose book, Scenes in China was written in 1841, but published in 1852. The second is William Maxwell Wood, the first Surgeon General of the United States Navy. His Fankwei (1859) records what he observed in India, China, and Japan in the mid-1850s. The next is S. Wells Williams, American missionary printer, diplomat, and Sinologue, whose book, The Middle Kingdom,(1848) became the standard book on China for half a century. Last but not least, Bayard Taylor, "the Great American Traveler," wrote A Visit to India, China, and Japan in the Year 1853, which was very popular in America. By focusing on the four American writers' representations of the opium issue, I hope to demonstrate in my dissertation how these writers misperceived and misunderstood that important historic event. Meanwhile, I also attempt to explore how their misunderstanding was caused by their cultural background, their own personal experience, their goals in China, and, their prejudice against Chinese culture. In addition, I will also show how their Orientalism reveals Protestantism at work in the Church, the Temperance Movement, market capitalism, and antislavery in antebellum America, as well as the trend toward consumerism in later nineteenth century.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Curtis, Purdue University.

Subject Area

American studies|American literature

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