FASS Brown Bag Seminar by Dr Charles Burgess | Man in the Middle in Context: Joseph Alsop and the Politics of American Strategy in China, 1941-1945

Dear all,

You are cordially invited to the second session of the FASS Brown Bag Seminar Series in Semester 1 of AY24/25. Dr Charles Burgess (NUS History) will be presenting on “Man in the Middle in Context: Joseph Alsop and the Politics of American Strategy in China, 1941-1945”.

Date: 19 September, 12pm – 1pm
Register: Zoom

Man in the Middle in Context: Joseph Alsop and the Politics of American Strategy in China, 1941-1945
America’s wartime experience in China was a complicated one. Tyrannies of geography, logistics, politics, personalities, and culture all combined to produce pathologies that endured after war’s end. This presentation uses the historical approach of the "man in the middle" or the "man on the spot” to focus on a microcosm of that experience: the activities of the journalist Joseph Alsop. Later famous as the most hawkish of “cold warriors”, Alsop first emerged as a political force during his wartime service in China where he used his substantial political connections to influence the politics of American strategy in China.

Charles Burgess is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History, National University of Singapore. His research focuses on Western military power in Asia in the 20th century, particularly the interactions between national policy, grand strategy, and military operations. His current work examines American airpower in China during WWII.