Yangtze Patrol: American Naval Forces in China
A Selected, Partially-Annotated Bibliography

Alden, John D. The American Steel Navy: A Photographic History of the U.S. Navy from the Introduction of the Steel Hull in 1883 to the Cruise of the Great White Fleet, 1907-1909. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1989. 396 pages. [NPS Location: VA 59 A4]

A short chapter on “gunboat diplomacy” briefly mentions the service of those vessels in China prior to 1909. An ‘appendix’ displays line drawings and a brief written description of gunboats from the 1900 era.

Allen, Charles (ed.). Tales from the South China Seas: Images of the British in South-East Asia in the Twentieth Century.. London: MacDonald and Co., 1983. Barber, Noel. The Fall of Shanghai. New York: Coward, McCann & Geohagen, 1977. [NPS/DKL Location: DS 796 S2 B28]

“Barber’s history of the ‘splendor and squalor’ of Shanghai from 1948 to 1953 is a fascinating story written in fine vivid scenes with first-hand descriptions from characters in the drama. … His focus is on Shanghai which, before the Red Army’s quiet conquest, was an almost independent social and economic British outpost in which Americans, White Russians, Jews, and Chinese played their parts. … This is a good adventure/history for the lay reader.” Terry Farish in Library Journal, 1 November 1979, v. 104, page 2344.

Baschet, Eric. China 1890-1938: From the Warlords to World War – A History in Documentary Photographs. Kehl am Rhein, Germany: Swan, 1989. 260 pages, ill. [NPS/DKL Location: In Process]

Bernhardt, Kathryn. Rents, Taxes, and Peasant Resistance: The Lower Yangzi Region, 1840-1950. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1992. 326 pages, ill., maps.

“ … a highly valuable study of the social and economic history of the Lower Yangtze through the tumultuous times: the Taiping rebellion, the collapse of the Qing, and the Republican period. … the author provides a highly readable narrative of the economic and social history of this period and place …” Daniel Little in The American Historical Review, April 1993, v. 98, n. 2, page 543.

This scholarly book is of little interest to those seeking information specifically about the Yangtze Patrol but it explains the social and economic conditions in China that directly impacted on the American naval activities which co-existed in China at nearly the exact time frame covered by this book.

Bird, Isabella Lucy (1831-1904). The Yangtze Valley and Beyond: An Account of Journeys in China. Boston: Beacon Press, 1987. 547 pages, ill.

Isabella Bird was a remarkable women adventurer. This book, one of several that she wrote, is her last great travel book and documents the Yangtze Valley at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Bodin, Lynn E. The Boxer Rebellion. London: Osprey, 1979. 40 pages, [8] pages of plates, ill.

“Men-at-Arms Series; number 95.”

Booker, Edna Lee and John S. Potter. Flight from China. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1945. 236 pages.

“No one has ever described the exotic atmosphere of Shanghai in the 1920’s more vividly or more accurately than Miss Booker; her husband contributes a significant section on Japanese policies in Shanghai after Pearl Harbor and on his experiences in a Japanese concentration camp. It is not a sensational book; neither of the authors went through or witnessed any of the cruelties which others have suffered. Nor does it contribute to an understanding of Chinese politics or culture. The China one sees is that of the treaty ports, which were more Western than Chinese …” M.S. Stewart in The Nation, 29 September 1945, v. 161, page 320.

Borg, Dorothy. American Policy and the Chinese Revolution, 1925-1928. New York: Octagon Books, 1968 [c1947]. 440 pages. [NPS/DKL Location: E 183.8 C5 B7]

Primarily a diplomatic history but some chapters, such as chapter 13, “The Protection of Nationals,” and chapter 14, “The Nanking Incident,” document, explain, and interpret the activities of American naval forces in protecting American citizens and business interests.

______. The United States and the Far Eastern Crisis of 1933-1938: From the Manchurian Incident through the Initial Stage of the Undeclared Sino-Japanese War. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964. 674 pages. [NPS/DKL Location: DS 784 B7]

“ … discusses the development of our Far Eastern policy in the mid-1930’s … the book explores … U.S. naval policy, American attitudes toward developments inside China, Roosevelt and Hull’s over-all approach to the international situation, and certain controversial aspects of American public opinion.” From the publishers note.

“This craftsman-like, fair-minded, even-tempered book makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of what surely is one of the most exasperating periods in the history of American foreign policy.” W.H. Heinrichs in American Historical Review, January 1965, v. 70, page 427.

Bose, Newmain S. American Attitude and Policy to the Nationalist Movement in China, 1911-1921. Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1970.

Braisted, William R. The United States Navy in the Pacific, 1897-1909. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1958. 282 pages. [NPS/DKL Location: E 182 B8]

“…This book [attempts] … to evaluate the navy’s influence on American foreign policy during these formative years. … The inter-relationship of naval and diplomatic policies is kept central to the major events of the period, such as … the Boxer Rebellion and the Open Door Policy in China …” From Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1959

“This work begins by chiding scholars for neglecting the Navy Department records and ignoring the influence of sea power on American objectives in the Far East. … It is an interesting study of the detailed operations of the Navy in relation to the problems that confronted the country in the Far East.” S.W. Livermore in American Historical Review, January 1959, v. 64, page 406.

______. The United States Navy in the Pacific, 1909-1922. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971. 741 pages. [NPS/DKL Location: E 182 B83]

“Chock full of facts and figures, [the book] illumines many obscure passages in naval-diplomatic history.” A.D. Coox in Pacific Affairs, Spring 1972, v. 45, page 93.

Look in the index under “Yangtze River,” “Asiatic Fleet” and “China” for pages pertaining to naval operations on the Yangtze, including citations to pertinent government treaties and documents.

Brice, Martin H. The Royal Navy and the Sino-Japanese Incident 1937-41. London: Ian Allen, 1971. [NPS/DKL Location: In Process]

Brown, F.C., John E. Lella and Roger J. Sullivan. The 4th Marines and Soochow Creek. Bennington, Vermont: International Graphics Corporation, 1980. [NPS/DKL Location: In Process]

Brown, Frederick. From Tientsin to Peking with the Allied Forces. New York: Arno press, 1970. 126 pages, ill., ports.

“Reprint of the 1902 edition.” “Personal narrative.” LC Notes.

Brownson, Willard Herbert. America Spreads Her Sails: U.S. Seapower in the 19th Century. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1973. [NPS/DKL Location: E 182 B2]

______. From Frigate to Dreadnought. Sharon, Connecticut: King House, 1973. 294 pages, ill. [NPS/DKL Location: CT 2 R88 H2]

Buck, Pearl. The Good Earth. New York: John Day, 1931, 375 pages. [NPS/DKL Location: PS 3503 U2 G6]

This famous, fabulously-selling Pulitzer Prize novel, which has been both lavishly praised and harshly criticized, will serve to represent all of Nobelist Buck’s copious writings on China, both fiction and non-fiction. Pearl Buck, born in 1892, was the child of American missionaries in China and lived there until she was seventeen, though she returned in 1927 at the time of the Nanking Affair and escaped death only ten minutes ahead of the invading Nationalist army. During her childhood, her family lived among the Chinese, not in a foreign compound, and Chinese was Buck’s first spoken language.

Butler, Smedley. Historical Report of the Occupation of Tientsin by the Third Brigade, Under the Command of Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler, U.S.M.C., from the First Part of June 1927 until December 1928. National Archives. Unpublished Paper, 1929. 29 pages.

Cited by Myron J. Smith in The American Navy, 1918-1941. In this paper General Butler describes his command activities in protecting American citizens during China’s civil war.

______. War is a Racket. New York: Round Table Press, Inc., 1935. 52 pages.

A retired marine general’s condemnation of war and its profiteers. In this controversial book Butler compares himself and fellow Marines with racketeers; but the best Al Capone could do, Butler wrote, was “operate a racket in three city districts. The Marines operated on three continents.” Butler called himself an unwitting “gangster for capitalism.”

Cable, James. Gunboat Diplomacy, 1919-1991: Political Applications of Limited Naval Force. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994. Third edition. 246 pages. [NPS/DKL Location: V 25 C327 1994]

“In addition to the stringency of its argument and the quality of its documentation, the book is written with a wit and humanity rare in modern strategic writing … [Cable] refines his concept [of gunboat diplomacy] into four categories of force – definitive, purposeful, catalytic, and expressive – and provides historical examples of each … [The book contains a] long appendix, an illustrative chronology covering the years 1919 to 1969, in which Mr. Cable lists in detail the year-by-year uses of limited naval force for diplomatic purposes, each incident grouped into its appropriate category and the success or failure, from the ‘assailants’ point of view, noted.” Times Literary Supplement, 21 January 1972, page 71.

The chronologically arranged appendix lists selective instances in the application of limited naval force from 1919 to 1991 but the incidents in China during the 1920s were far more numerous than represented here.

Cameron, Nigel. The Face of China as seen by Photographers and Travellers, 1860-1912. New York: Aperture, 1978. 159 pages, photographs. [NPS/DKL Location: DS 761 F17]

These fascinating photographs of the land, people, and aftermath of battles provide a sampling of what American naval forces would have encountered in China.

Campbell, Ballard C., editor. The Challenges of Change: American Lives, 1870-1920. Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources, In Press.

Kenneth Hagan’s chapter entitled “William S. Sims: Naval Insurgent, Coalition Warrior” summarizes the life of Sims, an iconoclastic outsider who rose to four-star admiral, highest rank in the U.S. Navy prior to WWII. He served in China during 1895-1896 and 1901-1902.

Carey, Arch. The War Years at Shanghai, 1941 – 45 - 48. New York: Vantage Press, 1967.

Chadbourne, Charles C. Sailors and Diplomats: U.S. Naval Operations in China, 1865-1877. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of Washington, 1976.

Chang, Hsin-pao. Commissioner Lin and the Opium War. New York: Norton, 1970. 319 pages, maps. [NPS/DKL Location: DS 757.5 C4]

“This book places the Opium War of 1840-1842 in its historical perspective and also details the day-to-day crises that led up to the hostilities … Mr. Chang examines the development of the Canton trading system and the British trade in China …” Book Review Digest, 1965, page 221.

Chang, Iris. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II. New York: Basic Books, 1997. 304 pages.

This bestselling book may earn Iris Chang a nomination for the Pulitzer prize.

Chi, His-Sheng. Warlord Politics in China, 1916-1928. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1976. 282 pages, plates, ill. [NPS/DKL Location: DS 777.45 C53]

China Yearbook 1921. Tientsin: Tsientin Press, 1922.

Chronology of the United States Marine Corps, 1775 - 1934. Washington: Historical Branch, G-3 Division Headquarters, US Marine Corps, 1965. 129 pages. [NPS/DKL Location: VE 23 U6 v.1]

A typical entry reads as follows: “1927 … 4 Mar. A detachment of Marines and seamen from the USS Pittsburgh recaptured an American vessel, the Meifoo XIV, from the Chinese off Shanghai.” There is no subject index so the reader will find information pertaining to China interspersed among other Marine activities from around the world.

Chronology of the United States Marine Corps, 1935 - 1946. Washington: Historical Branch, G-3 Division Headquarters, US Marine Corps, 1965. 139 pages. [NPS/DKL Location: VE 23 U6 v.2]

Because this volume encompasses World War II, there is less information on China than in volume 1 above. Here is a sample entry: “1937 … 12 Aug. The 4th Marines at Shanghai, China was augmented by a landing force from the USS Augusta of 50 Marines and 57 bluejackets.”

Chronology of the United States Marine Corps, 1947 - 1964. Washington: Historical Branch, G-3 Division Headquarters, US Marine Corps, 1971. 73 pages. [NPS/DKL Location: VE 23 U6 v.3]

Note this entry from 13 February 1948: “The Chinese Communists confirmed they had captured five U.S. Marines who had disappeared on Christmas day near Tsingtao while on a hunting trip. PFC Charles J. Brayton, Jr., 19, of New York, was fatally wounded, and the four survivors would be held until the U.S. navy apologized. The five were accused of participating in the civil war.”

Clark, George B. Treading Softly, the U.S. Marines in China, from the 1840’s to the 1940’s. Pike, New Hampshire: Brass Hat, 1996.

“From the Opium War of 1842 until their withdrawal in November 1940, United States Marines were actively involved in China. Until now there has been no single source that covered all the disparate episodes and escapades of the China Marines.

“… the reader not only learns the official history of various units and engagements, but also develops an understanding and appreciation of life on the China Station. Under most circumstances it was hardly the most taxing of assignments. … Officers lived in the lap of luxury, far beyond what their meager salaries would have provided at home. Of course, there were periods of intense activity, if not sheer terror. The famed 35–day siege of the Legation at Peking and the defense of the International Settlement at Tientsin (1900), as well as repeated threats by war lords to Shanghai’s famed International Settlement in the 1920s and 1930s made the reputations of Marine heroes such as Dan Daly, “Handsome Jack” Myers, and Smedley Butler.” Anne Cipriano Venzon in Marine Corps Gazette, August 1996, v. 80, n. 8, page 77.

Clements, Paul Henry. The Boxer Rebellion: A Political and Diplomatic Review. New York: AMS Press, 1979. 243 pages.

“Reprint of the 1915 edition published by Columbia University, New York, which was issued as v. 66, no. 3 of Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law.” from LC Notes.

Clifford, Nicholas R. Spoilt Children of Empire: Westerners in Shanghai and the Chinese Revolution of the 1920s. Hanover, New Hampshire: Middlebury College Press, 1991. 361 pages, ill., photographs. [NPS/DKL Location: DS 796 S29 C57 1991]

“By 1920 an enclave of some 38,000 foreigners lived in Shanghai with their own government, lifestyle, and privileges … The May 30, 1925 shooting of 11 Chinese by British police, with subsequent nationalist protests, began to chip away at foreign control in Shanghai. Chiang Kai-Shek’s massacres of Communists of Shanghai in 1927 again showed Chinese influence over the city.” Elizabeth A. Teo in Library Journal, 15 June 1991, v. 116, page 88.

Cole, Bernard D. Gunboats and Marines: The United States Navy in China, 1925-28. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1983. 229 pages, ill., maps.

“Cole examines the role of the United States Navy and Marine Corps in China during the most turbulent years of the Nationalist Revolution, 1925-1928. [He argues that] having defended American rights in China under the so-called unequal treaties for more than eighty years, the navy, along with American diplomacy in the mid 1920’s, confronted the fact that extraterritoriality, conventional tariff, most-favored-nation treatment, foreign settlements and concessions, and traditional gunboat diplomacy faced eventual extinction.” Journal of American History, 1984.

“Cole has provided a thorough and thoughtful portrait of the pattern of US gunboat diplomacy in the Yangtze River Valley and along the Chinese coast during the troubled years of the Kuomintang’s ‘united front’ with the Chinese communists. … He has made excellent use of a wide range of sources, including archival materials and the collected papers of a number of major figures he deals with, to recreate the naval milieu of China.” Choice, July/August 1983, v. 20, page 1644.

______. The United States Navy in China, 1925-1928. Ph.D. dissertation, Auburn University, 1978.

Collar, Hugh. Captive in Shanghai. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. [NPS/DKL Location: In Process]

Coltman, Robert. Beleagured in Peking: The Boxer’s War Against the Foreigner. Philadelphia: F.A. David, 1901. 208 pages.

Condit, Kenneth W. and Edwin T. Turnbladh. Hold High the Torch: A History of the 4th Marines. Washington, D.C.: United States Marine Corps, 1960.

“The first sight of China was a disappointment. There were no pagodas, no temple bells, no spice-laden breezes. Instead, there was a large billboard stuck in a mud bank advertising, in English, a well-known brand of American chewing gum.” Condit and Turnbladh, page 120.

“The American stake in Shanghai was a modest one. Only 1800 Americans resided there in 1926, and they handled only 12 per cent of the tonnage passing through the port. This was representative of the total United States stake in China, where our commerce amounted to less than four per cent of our foreign trade during the decade 1921-1930.” Condit and Turnbladh, page 123.

“In his desire to avoid a clash with organized Chinese armies, [President] Coolidge handicapped our forces in carrying out their mission of protecting American lives and property. Even before additional Marines were ordered to Shanghai, Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg cabled MacMurray that 'it must be definitely understood that this force is present for the purpose of protecting American life and property at Shanghai. This government is not prepared to use its naval force at Shanghai for the purpose of protecting the integrity of the Settlement.” Condit and Turnbladh, page 127.

“The landing of the 4th Regiment in Shanghai was also delayed by political considerations. Fearing that the appearance of the Marines on the streets would be used as a pretext for anti-foreign propaganda, the State Department instructed Clarence Gauss, the consul general in Shanghai, not to request military aid until danger to American life and property was imminent. As a result the Marines remained in their cramped quarters aboard the Chaumont.” Condit and Turnbladh, page 129.

“The International Settlement was a Western enclave in a hostile city of three million inhabitants. About half of its boundary rested on natural barriers ­ Soochow Creek on the northwest, and the Whangpoo river on the southeast. On the west, the defense perimeter was pushed out beyond the political boundary to the tracks of the Shanghai-Hangchow-Ningpo Railroad, the embankment of which made a natural defensive position. On the south the French Concession offered a measure of protection, but, in the absence of any agreement with the French or any knowledge of their plans, this boundary also had to be fortified and manned. To the northeast was the densely populated Chinese quarter of Chapei.” Condit and Turnbladh, page 130.

Cooney, David M. A Chronology of the U.S. Navy: 1775-1965. New York: Franklin Watts, 1965.

Craig, Berry. Patrol Craft Sailors Association: “Too Good to be Forgotten.” Paducah, Kentucky: Turner Pub. Co., 1990. 112 pages, ill.

Daggett, A. S. America in the China Relief Expedition. Kansas City, Missouri: Hudson-Kimberly, 1903. 267 pages.

Contains numerous references to the Navy and Marine Corps with reproductions of some orders and reports.

Dartige du Fournet, Louis. Journal d’un Commandant de la Comete: China-Siam-Japon (1892-1893). Paris: E. Plon, Nourrit et cie, 1897. 301 pages, plates.

In French. Account of life aboard a French gunboat in China and other Asian locations late in the nineteenth century.

Deane, Hugh. Good Deeds and Gunboats: Two Centuries of American-Chinese Encounters. San Francisco: China Books and Periodicals, 1990. 300 pages.

“There are a number of vignettes memorializing such relatively unknown friends of China as botanist Frank Meyer, drowned in the Yangtze in 1918 after thirteen years of difficult, devoted, productive work there. There are also sketches of such newsworthy figures as Major Stilwell, Agnes Smedley, and Edgar Snow whom the author knew personally. … Perhaps the best way to give an idea of this episodic survey of the second and third quarters of our century is to list a few of the section subheads. These include: "Herbert Hoover and the Kaiping Mines Swindle," "Gunboats on the Yangtze," "Agnes Smedley and Lu Xun - Friends in a Dark Time," "China Crisis - American Journals,"” A.T. Rubinstein in Monthly Review, February 1992, v. 43, n. 9, page 5.

“Contrast between Americans who sought to intervene in and control China and those who came to assist pose the dialectic of this book. The author was a Chinese exchange student in 1936 and a wartime journalist in the 1940s.” E.A. Teo in Library Journal, 1 October 1990, v. 115, n. 16, page 106.

Dennett, Tyler. Americans in Eastern Asia: A Critical Study of the Policy of the United States with References to China, Japan, and Korea in the 19th Century. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1941. [NPS/DKL Location: DS 518.8 D38]

Dick, H.W. and S.A. Kentwell. Beancaker to Boxboat: Steamship Companies in Chinese Waters. Canberra: Nautical Association of Australia, 1988. [NPS/DKL Location: In Process]

______. Sold East: Traders, Tramps, and Tugs of Chinese Waters. Melbourne: Nautical Association of Australia, 1991. [NPS/DKL Location: In Process]

Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1959-1991. Nine volumes, ill., maps. [NPS/DKL Location: Reserve and Reference VA 61 U6]

Excellent source of historical information about individual vessels in the American fleet from any period of the nation’s history.

Dix, C. C. The World’s Navies in the Boxer Rebellion. London: Digby, Long, 1905. 319 pages.

Dixon, Benjamin Franklin. Seeing China Through a Porthole. Manila: Mission Press, 1924. 137 pages, plates, ports., map., facsims.

The author traveled aboard a United States gunboat, the Asheville.

Donnelly, Ralph W. See Chronology of the United States Marine Corps, 1947 – 1964.

Dorn, Frank. The Sino-Japanese War, 1937-41: From Marco Polo Bridge to Pearl Harbor. New York: Macmillan Company, 1974. 477 pages, ill. [NPS/DKL Location: DS 777.53 D6]

Drage, Charles. General of Fortune, the Story of One-Arm Sutton. London: William Heinemann, 1963.

______. Taikoo. London: Constable and Co. 1970. [NPS/DKL Location: In Process]

Dupuy, Richard Ernest and William Henry Baumer. The Little Wars of the United States. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1968. 226 pages. [NPS/DKL Location: E 181 D9]

Chapter five describes the China Relief Expedition of 1900 that saved the foreign legations in Peking from the rage of the so-called Boxers.

Ellsworth, Harry Allanson. One Hundred Eighty Landings of United States Marines 1800-1934. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, US Marine Corps, 1974. [NPS/DKL Location: VE 23 E4]

Enders, Elizabeth C. Swinging Lanterns. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1923.

“A narrative of a year’s travel and residence in China. A most enthusiastic traveler, and often under the experienced guidance of a Chinese friend, Mrs. Enders seems to have penetrated to an unusual degree the life and ways of the people, observing them in the streets and byways. With Peking as headquarters and place of residence she visited Soochow, the ancient walled city, the cosmopolitan Shanghai …. The book is well illustrated and there is an index.” Book Review Digest, 1923, page 149.

______. Temple Bells and Silver Sails. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1925.

“… [Ms. Enders] describes a trip on the Ch’ien Tang [Yangtze] river to the Dragon gorge, wanderings about Shanghai, a night on the Great Wall of China, a journey by chair thru the Nankow pass, and one to the grave of Confucius. Her big adventure was a trip of fifteen hundred miles up the Yangtze River thru the land of the bandits, and the terrible gorges of the upper river, to Chungking. This adventure ended in shipwreck in which the author narrowly escaped death.” Book Review Digest, 1926, page 215.

Esherick, Joseph. The Origins of the Boxer Uprising. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. 451 pages, ill.

“The author argues persuasively that the Boxers were loyalists, not rebels, whose antiforeign rampage can only be understood by examining a nexus of socioeconomic ‘preconditions’ and popular cultural customs. At the same time, joining a contentious debate on Western imperialism in China, [the book] stresses to role of factors exogenous to the Boxers’ traditional world, notably the forced entry into China of Christianity and foreign consumer goods, and the impact of China’s devastating loss in the Sino-Japanese war of 1895.’ H.R. Chauncey in Choice, November 1987, v. 25, page 530.

Evans, Fordyce Carlson. Twin Stars of China: A Behind the Scenes Story of China’s valiant Struggle for Existence by a U.S. Marine Who Lived and Moved with the People. New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1941. 331 pages, ill.

A Marine officer’s account of observing the Chinese military scene including service with the Communist Eighth Route Army in 1937 and 1938.

Evans, Robley Dunglison. A Sailor’s Log: Recollections of Forty Years of Naval Life. New York: D. Appleton, 1903. 467 pages, ports., plates. [NPS/DKL Location: Buckley CT 5 V23 A2 1928]

Evans, William R. Soochow and the 4th Marines. Rogue River, Oregon: Atwood Publishing Company, 1987. [NPS/DKL Location: In Process]

Fairbank, John King, ed. The Cambridge History of China, Late Ch’ing, 1800-1911. Two volumes. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978. [NPS/DKL Location: DS 735 C3145]

______. Chinese-American Interactions: A Historical Summary. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1975. [NPS/DKL Location: E 183.8 C5 F153]

______, ed. The Missionary Enterprise in China and America. Boston: Harvard University Press, 1975. 442 pages. [NPS/DKL Location: BV 3415.2 F2]

______. Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast: The Opening of the Treaty Ports, 1842-1854. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1969. [NPS/DKL Location: HF 3776 F2]

______. The United States and China. Boston: Harvard University Press, 1979. 4th edition, 606 pages, il., maps. [NPS/DKL Location: DS 735 F222]

“This edition like the earlier ones, contains a history of China, an analysis of Chinese society, and an account of Sino-American relations.” Book Review Digest, 1979, page 393.

“No one is more knowledgeable about China … than Fairbank, the dean of American China scholars … He offers excellent descriptions of Chinese society and history, in addition to a solid discussion of Sino-American relations.” D. D. Buck in Library Journal, 1 March 1979, v. 104, page 615.

Fay, Peter W. The Opium War, 1840-1842: Barbarians in the Celestial Empire in the Early Part of the Nineteenth Century and the War by which They Forced Her Gates Ajar. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1975.

Fei, Hsiao-t’ung. Peasant Life in China: A Field Study of Country Life in the Yangtze Valley / with a preface by Bronislaw Malinowski. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1939. 300 p., ill. [NPS/DKL Location: HD 865 F2]

“A minutely detailed study of life in a small Chinese village (1500 population). The village chosen for study is located in a rice growing and silk raising district near Shanghai. The author’s main interest is in the details of agriculture and industry but he devotes several chapters to family organization, inheritance of property, kinship, and other matters. Index.” Cornelius Osgood in American Anthropologist, January 1940, v. 42, page 154.

Finney, Charles G. Old China Hands. Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Co., 1961.

“Finney’s nostalgic memories of the good old days of joshing and prodding the funny little yellow people by the 15th infantry regiment of the U.S. Army [during the 1920s] unintentionally tell us why so many mainland Chinese today bitterly resent Westerners’ assumptions of superiority.” F.D. Lueking in Christian Century, 21 March 1962, v. 79, page 363.

Fitkin, Gretchen Mae. The Great River. Shanghai: North China Daily News and Herald, 1922.

Fleming, Peter. The Siege at Peking. New York: Harper, 1959. 273 pages.

Fontenoy, Jean. The Secret Shanghai. New York: Grey-Hill Press, 1939.

Friedman, Norman. U.S. Small Combatants, including PT-Boats, Subchasers, and the Brown-Water Navy: An Illustrated Design History. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1987. 529 pages, ill. [NPS/DKL Location: REFERENCE V 833 F75 1987]

Geil, William Edgar. A Yankee on the Yangtze. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1904.

Gillan, Donald. Warlord: Yen His-Shan in Shansi Province, 1911-1949. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1967.

Green, Michael. River Patrol Boats. Mankato, Minnesota: Capstone High/Low Books, 1999 publication date.

“Briefly describes the development, weapons, and use of river patrol boats from the Revolutionary War days through the Vietnam War. Juvenile literature.” from LC Notes.

Grover, David H. American Merchant Ships on the Yangtze, 1920-1941. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1992. 234 p. ill. (DKL/NPS Location: HE 698 Z7 Y364 1992)

“This book focuses on American mariners in China between the two world wars. It illuminates the lives of individual crew members, the organizations of which they were a part, and the turbulent environment in which they worked.

“The American merchant fleet was as much a product of government policy as of private initiative….These ships operated with credentials provided by the Department of State and were entitled to protection by Navy gunboats and U.S. Marines. Their presence on the Yangtze proved less a source of private profit than a source of public policy dilemmas; they deepened American involvement in China at a time when political turmoil suggested that withdrawal from the river trade was the wiser course of action.

“Grover presents detailed and colorful descriptions of the three principal American firms’ operations. Standard Oil … had the largest fleet, stayed longest, and derived the biggest profits ..... The Dollar Line ships were originally sent to provide reliable and comfortable passenger service on the river. They never made money, however, and their eccentric owner soon lost interest. Those who ran the Yangtze Rapid Steamship Company resembled business buccaneers. They ran opium and guns for Chinese customers …[and] generally embarrassed the more staid diplomats, naval officers, and missionaries by their conduct.

“ … There was friction between merchant captains and senior naval officers that grew out of different mind-sets, the lack of clear guidance from Washington, rapid turnover of naval commanders, and excessive concern for “not losing face” before the Chinese. Grover suggest that this tension, far more than a paucity of naval resources, made naval protection for American Yangtze mariners a sometime thing and, more importantly, rendered the often stated naval mission of “protecting American lives and property” in China a platitude rather than an “operative policy” on the Yangtze.

“ … [An] important aspect is the book’s unorthodox treatment of the Panay incident of December 1937. Grover argues that the Japanese bombing of the American gunboat, often termed a “prelude to war,” was the consequence of error, just as Tokyo claimed …”
Roger Dingman in Naval War College Review, Autumn 1994, v. 47, n. 4, pages 136–138.

______. (ed.). Riding Shotgun on the Yangtze: Armed Guards on American Merchant Ships in China. Napa, California: Western Maritime Press, 1993. 32 pages. ill.

Four short pieces: “A Short History of the Armed Guard on the Yangtze River” by the editor; “Merchant Ship Convoys on the Yangtze River” by E.G. Grosskopf; “Action on the Yangtze” by Cameron Winslow; and “The Declining Days of the Armed Guard” by J.F Moriarty.

______. Yankee Captains on the Yangtze River. Napa, California: Western Maritime Press, 1995. 46 pages, portraits.

Short profiles of five famed Yangzte skippers plus a short essay entitled “The World of the Yangtze River Captain” and a reprinted article from a circa 1930 Navy publication printed in China.

______ and Gretchen Grover. Captives of Shanghai: The Story of the President Harrison. Napa, California: Western Maritime Press, 1989. 189 pages. [NPS/DKL Location: In Process]

The President Harrison, an American passenger liner, rescued a Marine regiment from Shanghai but was captured by the Japanese while trying to save yet another Marine detachment in northern China. She was converted into a troop ship by the Japanese and finally – and sadly - sunk by an American submarine while transporting Allied prisoners.

Hagan, Kenneth J. American Gunboat Diplomacy and the Old Navy, 1877-1889. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1973. 262 pages. [NPS/DKL Location: E 182 H15]

“Hagan … has succeeded notably in relating the growth of American mercantilism in the 1870s and 1880s to the corresponding development of naval strategy and power in that period. The U.S. was started on the road to empire in those times, and the author tells us how.” R.T. Redden in Library Journal, August 1973, v. 98, page 2282.

______, ed. In Peace and War: Interpretations of American Naval History, 1775-1978. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1978. [NPS/DKL Location: VA 55 I34]

“A collection of seventeen essays that constitutes the most significant American naval history survey to appear in more than thirty years.” William Braisted in A Guide to the Sources of U.S. Military History, Supplement I, page 88.

Hailey, Foster and Milton Lancelot. Clear for Action: The Photographic Story of Modern Naval Combat, 1898-1964. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1964. 320 pages. [NPS/DKL Location: D 27 H2]

“Only about 75 pages are devoted to the period from 1898 – 1919, which included three naval wars. …The accompanying text is riddled with minor errors.” R.N. Sheridan in Library Journal, 1 January 1965, v. 90, page 118.

Haines, Gregory. Gunboats on the Great River. London: Macdonald and Jane’s, 1975. 181 pages, 12 pages of plates, ill., map.

A British perspective.

Hart, John N. The Making of an Army “Old China Hand”: A Memoir of Colonel David D. Barrett. Berkeley, California: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1985.

Haviland, E.K. Early Steam Navigation in China: The Yangtze River, 1861-1867. Salem, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum of Salem, 1983. [NPS/DKL Location: In Process]

Henderson, Daniel. Yankee Ships in China Seas: Adventures of Pioneer Americans in the Troubled Far East. New York: Hasting House, 1946. 274 pages, plates, ports. [NPS/DKL Location: Buckley DS 709 H4]

U.S. Naval activities are peripherally mentioned in a discussion of business enterprises, life in shipyards and at sea, missionary adventures, and social and family life in China.

Henson, Curtis T. Commissioners and Commodores: The East India Squadron and American Diplomacy in China. University, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1982. 231 pages, ill.

“This is a study of the role of the East India Squadron of the United States Navy in the conduct of American foreign policy in China and in the promotion of the interests of American merchants engaged in trade with China. The Squadron, which was created in 1835, was recalled in 1861 to participate in the Civil War …” in American Historical Review, 1983.

Hersey, John. The Call. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1985. 701 pages. [NPS/DKL Location: Leisure HER]

Though a work of fiction, this book offers an interpretation of the complicated history of China from 1900 to post-WWII from the perspective of an American missionary who has pledged his life to help the struggling masses of Chinese humanity. John Hersey, winner of the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for A Bell for Adano, is uniquely qualified to elucidate on this topic because he was born in Tientsin of American missionary parents in 1914 and lived and studied there until 1925. In notes at the end of the book, Hersey lists primary and secondary sources of information about social/political conditions in China and American missionary work there during the first half of the twentieth century.

______. A Single Pebble. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1956. 181 pages [NPS/DKL Location: In Process]

“A young sensitive American engineer, with one goal in mind, the harnessing of the Yangtse River, ships up river by Junk to see for himself where a dam could be placed. This is the story of that journey in time.” Kirkus Reviews, 1956.

“In a deceptively simple story, [Hersey] has captured all the magic, the terror and the drama of that extraordinary stretch of water … the American’s discoveries of his own mind and of the Chinese people are dwarfed by the laws, the demands and the ageless vitality of the Yangtze.” S.R. Rau in New York Times, 10 June 1956, page 5.

This novel contrasts Western and Eastern ways of life through the experiences of an American engineer in China. As noted above, Hersey was born in China and received his early education there.

Hobart, Alice Tisdale. Oil for the Lamps of China. New York: Bobbs Merrill, 1933. 403 pages.

A novel about a mining engineer working for an American oil company and his struggle to learn Chinese ways early in the twentieth century.

“Mrs. Hobart, who has lived in China since 1910, is able to view Western civilization with the eyes of a detached observer. In China she has seen the end of the Manchu Empire, the coming of the republic, the rise of the war lords, and the advance of communism. She is thus peculiarly well equipped to set one civilization against the other for the illumination of both.” Margaret Wallace in New York Times 8 October 1933, page 6.

“This is the most humanly vivid book on China since Pearl Buck gave us her Good Earth.” Lady Dorothea Hosie in Saturday Review of Literature, 21 October 1933, v. 10, page 201.

______. Within the Walls of Nanking. New York: Macmillan, 1928. 243 pages.

“Mrs. Hobart tells a vivid story of events before and during the siege of Nanking in March 1927, when fifty-two Americans and British were attacked in the Hobart home by Nationalist soldiers until rescued by bombardment from the American and British ships on the Yangtse.” Book Review Digest, 1928, page 374.

Holt, Edgar. The Opium Wars in China. London: Dufors, 1964. [NPS/DKL Location: DS 757.5 H7]

Horton, John Ryder. Ninety-day Wonder: Flight to Guerrilla War. New York: Ivy Books, 1994. 262 pages, ill. [NPS/DKL Location: STACKS (!?)]

Personal narrative of World War II U.S. Navy commando operations in China and the Pacific.

Hoyt, Edwin Palmer. America’s Wars and Military Excursions. New York: McGraw Hill, 1987. 539 pages, maps. [NPS/DKL Location: E 181 H78 1987]

Chapter thirty-three, “Trouble on the Yangtze,” reviews American military history relations with China dating back to 1820.

“The American position regarding China was always somewhat different from that of the Europeans, which ought to be a matter for self-congratulation. We never did sink to the level of the Europeans in sawing off pieces of Chinese territory … As time went on, however, we did yield to the general call for extraterritorial concessions, and began to regard China as an international marketplace, with ourselves as most favored buyers and sellers. We began to lose sight, in the 1920s, of the reality of Chinese nationalism.” From Hoyt, page 368.

______. The Lonely Ships: The Life and Death of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet. New York: McKay, 1976. 338 pages, maps. [NPS/DKL Location: VA 63 A7 H8]

“This history of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet from the 1850’s to its demise in 1942, concentrates on the U.S. naval presence in China and East Asia on the eve of World War II.” Book Review Digest, 1977, page 640.

“There is a heavy emphasis on battle action throughout the book, which is clearly intended for popular appeal to a general audience.” In Choice, May 1977, v. 14, page 441.

“The book is filled with nostalgia of navy men and of lost causes consigned to history’s footnotes. Worth reading.” R.F. Delaney in Library Journal, 15 December 1976, v. 101, page 2572.

Icenhower, Joseph Bryan. The Panay Incident, December 12, 1937; The Sinking of an American Gunboat Worsens U.S – Japanese Relations. New York: Franklin Watts, 1971. 81 p., ill.

“This account, the only title presently available for young readers on the Panay incident, clearly and concisely describes the attack and its aftermath. The black-and-white photographs, many taken by correspondents who were present on board the ship during the attack, add greatly to the interest of the book.” S.M. Thrash in Library Journal, July 1972, v. 97, page 2489.

“…offers … new insight into why the U.S. was in China in 1937; why the Japanese sank the Panay; and why the forthcoming apologies and reassurances did little to shore up an already shaky American-Japanese relationship.” J.G. Gray in Best Sellers, 15 January 1972, v. 31, page 471.

Jane’s Fighting Ships. Various editions.

The annual issues can be used to trace the gunboats in the U.S. fleet. Each edition includes pictures, statistics, and design characteristics.

Johnson, Robert Erwin. Far China Station: The U.S. Navy in Asian Waters, 1800-1898. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1979. 307 pages, ill. [NPS/DKL Location: ON ORDER]

“ … Johnson has carefully examined the voluminous [U.S.] naval records to complete the first full account of American naval activities in the eastern seas from the appearance of the frigate Congress at the approaches to Canton in 1819 to George Dewey’s victory at manila bay in 1898.

“ …[The book] details … the comings and goings of individual ships, the idiosyncracies of the squadron commanders, the problems of personnel and supply, the calls for assistance from ministers, consuls, and ordinary Americans, and the navy’s encounters with east Asians, friendly and otherwise. Whereas initially the American government dispatched its ships to Asia primarily to protect American merchants and to transport American diplomats, after 1860 the navy responded increasingly to appeals from missionaries as these agents of the lord moved farther & farther from the secure treaty ports.” W.R. Braisted in Journal of American History, June 1982, v. 69, n. 1, page 167.

Kapp, Robert A. Szechwan and the Chinese Republic: Provincial Militarism and Central Power, 1911-1938. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973. 198 pages, ill. [NPS/DKL Location: DS 793 S8 K2]

Keenan, Barry C. Imperial China’s Last Classical Academies: Social Change in the Lower Yangzi, 1864-1911. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 1994. 199 pages, 1 map.

Kessler, Lawrence D. The Jiangyin Mission Station: An American Missionary Community in China, 1895-1951. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996. 212 pages.

“This is a well-written history of an American Presbyterian mission station in Jiangyin, a city about a hundred miles up the Yangtze (Chang) River from the more populous and prosperous Shanghai. … Kessler tracks this station and its inhabitants through the anti-Christian riots of the late 1890s, the collapse of the Qing (Ch’ing) dynasty in 1911, the warlord and revolutionary movements of the mid-1920s, Japanese incursions in the 1930s, and the Communist triumph of the late 1940s.” Eileen P. Scully in Journal of American History, September 1997, pages 694-695.

Knox, Dudley Wright. A History of the United States Navy. New York: Putnam, 1948. [NPS/DKL Location: E 182 K7]

Knox Library at the Naval Postgraduate School is named in honor of Dudley Wright Knox who, for many years, guided the development of the Navy Department’s historical archives. Knox captained the USS Iris gunboat during China’s Boxer Rebellion in 1900.

Koginos, Manny T. The Panay Incident: Prelude to War. Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Studies, 1967. 154 pages, ill. [NPS/DKL Location: E 183.8 J3 K7]