Inspired by recent work on diaspora and cultural globalization, Adam McKeown asks in this new book: How were the experiences of different migrant communities and hometowns in China linked together through common networks? Chinese Migrant Networks and Cultural Change argues that the political and economic activities of Chinese migrants can best be understood by taking into account their links to each other and China through a transnational perspective. Despite their very different histories, Chinese migrant families, businesses, and villages were connected through elaborate networks and shared institutions that stretched across oceans and entire continents. Through small towns in Qing and Republican China, thriving enclaves of businesses in South Chicago, broad-based associations of merchants and traders in Peru, and an auspicious legacy of ancestors in Hawaii, migrant Chinese formed an extensive system that made cultural and commercial exchange possible.

Adam McKeown , associate professor, teaches the history of the United States and East Asia . He received a B.A. from the University of California , Santa Cruz ( 1987) and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago ( 1997). He has written on the Chinese diaspora, global migration, and the history of passports and migration control. He teaches courses on globalization in history, international law, and the history of drugs and smuggling. His publications include Chinese Migrant Networks and Cultural Change: Peru , Chicago, Hawaii , 1900-1936 (2001) and Melancholy Order: Asian Migration and the Globalization of Borders, 1834-1937 (forthcoming). He is now researching the history of globalization since the 1760s.