Cold War Development: American Technology Sales to China During Rapprochement

Elizabeth Ingleson

Carl Crow’s Four Hundred Million Customers, providing first hand advice about how to trade with China, was first published in 1937. Widely popular, the book won the National Book Award and went through multiple editions over the years. Most recently, in 2003, EastBridge publishers reprinted Crow’s work. Even though nearly eight decades had elapsed since Crow first penned the book, EastBridge framed it as a source of contemporary expertise. This paper explores Crow’s work and the context in which it was republished. It "reinterprets" the notion that Crow’s 1937 book held any relevance in 2003, suggesting that its republication illustrated much deeper ways in which Western-centric expectations of change in China continued to inform American foreign policy in the post-cold war period.