This book is about the history of the Cantonese people in China and America, in the period 1850-1900. It offers a new revisionist perspective of Cantonese people, as framed within a transnational/diasporic context on both sides of the Cantonese Pacific Rim Region. This book is in part academic, for scholars and students; and in part of general interest for the layman and general reader. Chinese Americans may be especially interested in this book because it is the history of their ancestors. No one has investigated this subject, much less framed it within a transnational context (China and America). The author hopes that readers will learn about who the Cantonese people were, why they were unique, and why their story matters, as a significant and relevant chapter of our history.

About the Author

Douglas W. Lee is a second-generation Cantonese-Chinese American, trained as a historian of Modern China, with a special research interest in early Chinese American History. He earned a BA at Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon (1967); an MA at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1969); a PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara (1979); and JD from Lewis and Clark Law School, Portland, Oregon (1988). In 1979-1980, Lee was the cofounder and first national President of the National Association for Asian American Studies. In 1981, he was cofounder of the Chinese Historical Society of the Pacific Northwest, and the first editor of its journal, The Annals of the Chinese Historical Society of the Pacific Northwest (Seattle, Washington). This book is the result of forty-five years of research and writing. It is the first of several volumes of a new series, entitled The Gum-Shaan Chronicles: The Early History of Cantonese-Chinese America, 1850-1900.