Red Star Over Good Earth: Individual American Experiences in China and the Construction of Cross-Cultural Images, 1931-1949

This honors thesis examines American perceptions and conceptions of China during the 1930s and 1940s, providing an intellectual history by synthesizing the experiences of Pearl Buck, the author; Edgar Snow, the journalist; and John S. Service, the foreign service officer. I traveled to archives around the country to access historical documentation of these image-makers’ observations, and combined this with secondary scholarship to contextualize their individual experiences. Buck's novels and other writings, Snow's reporting and books, and Service's official State Department memoranda painted a vivid, colorful set of images of China for different audiences of Americans. The portrayals of China and Chinese in each of these figures' observances were crafted with determined purpose and intent; each writer had a precise audience for which they were writing, and various historical, cultural, and ideological contexts significantly shaped their individual experiences. The thesis features chapters on China in the American book, political reporting on the Chinese Communist Party, and the individuals themselves as image-makers while applying the theory of Orientalism to their images. Summarily, this intellectual history speaks to broad ideas of cultural perception, exchange of ideas, and historical contextualism, or the historiographic focus on context.