Pearl S. Buck's engagement with (neo-)missionary cultures in the United States and China is a central element of her work. Against the backdrop of her missionary upbringing, the Nobel Prize winner Buck developed a fictional project which both revised and reaffirmed American foreign missionary activity in the Pacific Rim during the 20th century. Vanessa Kunnemann traces this aspect of the career of America's number one expert on China--as Buck came to be known--from a variety of disciplinary angles, including Middlebrow Studies and New American Studies.