Ancient China collides with newfangled America in this epic tale of opium smugglers, sea pirates, and dueling clipper ships. Brilliantly illuminating one of the least-understood areas of American history, best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin now traces our fraught relationship with China back to its roots: the unforgiving nineteenth-century seas that separated a brash, rising naval power from a battered ancient empire. It is a prescient fable for our time, one that surprisingly continues to shed light on our modern relationship with China. Indeed, the furious trade in furs, opium, and bêche-de-mer—a rare sea cucumber delicacy—might have catalyzed America’s emerging economy, but it also sparked an ecological and human rights catastrophe of such epic proportions that the reverberations can still be felt today. Peopled with fascinating characters—from the “Financier of the Revolution” Robert Morris to the Chinese emperor Qianlong, who considered foreigners inferior beings—this page-turning saga of pirates and politicians, coolies and concubines becomes a must-read for any fan of Nathaniel Philbrick’s Mayflower or Mark Kurlansky’s Cod. Blurbs/reviews for book: The author, whose grasp of the intricacies of international trade is firm, proceeds confidently and skillfully through a complex narrative. . . . A rich, highly readable examination of the seeds of poppies, trade, greed, grandeur and an international partnership that remains uneasy and perilous. — Kirkus, Starred Review “Eric Jay Dolin’s engagingly paced narrative of the early years in the China-America relationship made me smile as I recognized the modern reality in this old tale of the odd couple of statecraft. When America First met China, in fascinating ways tells us much about who we are today.” — Mark Kurlansky, author of Cod and Salt “Eric Jay Dolin’s When America First Met China is a smart, riveting history of what has become the most important bilateral relationship in the world. . . . An all-around outstanding work of maritime history.” –Douglas Brinkley, author of The Wilderness Warrior and The Great Deluge “Everything about China’s future relationship with the world is affected by its past. I had not known about the exploits described in Eric Jay Dolin’s fascinating book, but now that I do I am impressed by their importance and see current affairs in a new light. Anyone interested in China’s ambitions, memories, and sensitivities will be glad to have read this book.” — James Fallows, author of China Airborne “Eric Jay Dolin is one of our very finest popular historians, a formidable scholar and stylist of uncommon grace. When America Met China may be his best book yet. . . . It’s all here: tea, opium, raffish characters galore. Not only has Dolin filled a yawning gap in the historical literature; he has initiated a dramatic conversation about perhaps the most significant transcontinental contest of the twenty-first century.” — Kirk Davis Swinehart, author of This Broken House: A Family Undone by the American Revolution “When America First Met China is at once a tantalizing high-sea yarn of fast-running clippers and murderous pirates and a profound meditation on an international relation, first borached by feather-capped Yankee Doodles and queue-flaunting Hong Merchants, that still absorbs our attention today…Fresh, gripping, pelagically capacious”– Yunte Huang, author of Charlie Chan “Eric Jay Dolin has a special talent for unearthing the fascinating but forgotten origins of our current cultural obsessions and now he’s done it again. This fast-paced and deeply researched book is a must-read for anyone interested in America’s long history of competition and cooperation with China.” — Debby Applegate, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher Fast-moving . . . focuses on intriguing anecdotes and personal vignettes, featuring colorful subjects such as pirates, drug runners, and slave traders, as well as those engaged in more salubrious pursuits.. . . entertaining — Publishers Weekly