China on My Mind
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I could not escape China - from the Huai-hai battle in the late 1940s to a Zoom call with Chinese colleagues in the 2020s. Even though my Asia-born parents were Caucasian I am fond of saying China is in my blood: it is always on my mind. At a time when relations with China are undergoing huge debate this is an account of how we got started and where we are today. This is a story of U.S. cultural involvement in China – missionaries, medicine, and education. How was an American family affected by China’s civil war, the Korean war, Nixon’s opening, rapprochement, cooperation and competition? How did students, scholars and universities – of which I played a leading role – prefigure the difficult cultural problems which divide us and potentially unite us today? I myself embody this era. I am a missionary, an intellectual, an educator and a philanthropist. Others see economic or security dimensions, but I seek to understand the cultural and more personal dimensions of America’s Pacific century.
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About the Book
The United States and China are today at a crossroads. Will these great countries be enemies, or will they be engaged with each other? Mary Brown Bullock explores this question through the highs and lows of her yearly China travel for nearly five decades. Using vivid diary and letter records, her memoir describes being a missionary kid in Asia, studying China from afar, leading the first exchanges of students, being a college president, and establishing an American university in China. Bullock, an optimist and long-term participant, concludes with today’s uncertainty as Duke University, Ford Foundation, China Medical Board, United Board and National Committee on US–China Relations, and others face a new era of relations with China.
About the Author
Mary Brown Bullock received her PhD and MA from Stanford University and her BA from Agnes Scott College. She served as inaugural vice-chancellor of Duke Kunshan University, president of Agnes Scott College, professor at Emory University, and director of the Asia Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center and the Committee on Scholarly Communication with the PRC. Her previous books and articles focus on US–China cultural relations. She lives near Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband, George.