Using the case studies of American involvement with China and the Philippines, this program examines American attitudes toward Asia from 1776 to the present. The merchants, missionaries, and Marines--however well intentioned--often saw in Asia and Asians what they wanted to see, rather than the realities of those cultures and peoples.

Program nine in the Pacific Century series, which studies the interconnections between Pacific nations - and between those nations and the United States - within a geographical, cultural, and historical framework.