Introduction : the American Pacific : an errand into Oceania -- The "superlative and poetry of commerce" : scattered origins of an American Pacific frontier -- An American Pacific Jeremiad : Frank Norris's The octopus and U.S. imperialism -- The American Asiatic association and the imperialist imaginary of the American Pacific -- Becoming Hawaiian : Jack London, cultural tourism, and the myth of Hawaiian exceptionalism -- Maxine Hong Kingston's China men : frontiers of the Chinese American Pacific -- Memories of a forgotten war : a Filipino/American ghost story -- Conclusion : outside in the American Pacific
Summary
In a groundbreaking work of "New Americanist" studies, John R. Eperjesi explores the cultural and economic formation of the Unites States relationship to China and the Pacific Rim in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Eperjesi examines a variety of texts to explore the emergence of what Rob Wilson has termed the "American Pacific." Eperjesi shows how works ranging from Frank Norris' The Octopus to the Journal of the American Asiatic Association, from the Socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason to the travel writings of Jack and Charmain London, and from Maxine Hong Kingston's China Me
