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Peter Hessler: Teacher, Archaeologist, Anthropologist, Travel Writer, Master Storyteller

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 March 2013

Paul A. Cohen
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Abstract

In the first decade of the present century, Peter Hessler published three acclaimed works on China, mostly (although not exclusively) dealing with the present period. Many of the parts of the second and third volumes, in particular, initially appeared as articles in the New Yorker and National Geographic, where the deftness of Hessler's writing and his superb skills as a storyteller attracted attention well beyond the academic world. Hessler's books have also been widely and generously praised—and used in class—by teachers of contemporary China. Yet, to my knowledge, no China specialist has yet attempted a comprehensive assessment of their contribution to the deepening of American understanding of the complexities of Chinese life today. Such an assessment is the modest aim of this essay.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 72 , Issue 2 , May 2013 , pp. 251 - 272
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2013 

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References

1 The full titles of the three books: River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze (New York: Harper Perennial, [2001] 2002)Google Scholar; Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China (New York: Harper Perennial, [2006] 2007)Google Scholar; Country Driving: A Chinese Road Trip (New York: Harper Perennial, [2010] 2011)Google Scholar. References to the three books in this essay are indicated parenthetically, using the abbreviations RT, OB, and CD.

2 Cohen, Paul A., Speaking to History: The Story of King Goujian in Twentieth-Century China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), pp. xix, 241–42Google Scholar, notes 5–6.

3 Claire Needell Hollander, “Teach the Books, Touch the Heart,” New York Times, April 22, 2012, p. 4 (Sunday Review).

4 This spelling, given in RT, p. 8, is correct; elsewhere in the trilogy the surname is spelled Ho.

5 Wu's fine memoir, with contributions by his wife, was titled A Single Tear: A Family's Persecution, Love, and Endurance in Communist China (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

6 “Biography of Wang Kuo-wei (Wang Guowei),” in Dictionary of Republican China, ed. Boorman, Howard L. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), 3:390Google Scholar.