During the interwar years, contact between Asia and America forced a reassessment of the normative boundaries of race, sex, gender, class, home, and nation. Karen Kuo's provocative East Is West and West Is East looks closely at these global shifts to modernity. In her analysis of five forgotten texts - the 1930 film East Is West, Frank Capra's 1937 version of Lost Horizon and its 1973 remake; Younghill Kang's novel East Goes West; and Baroness Ishimoto's memoir/manifesto, Facing Both Ways - Kuo elucidates how 'Asia' played a role in shaping American gender and racial identities and how Asian...
During the interwar years, contact between Asia and America forced a reassessment of the normative boundaries of race, sex, gender, class, home, and n...