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An exciting history of American efforts to develop and dominate commerce across the Pacific.

Table of Contents

Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Preface
The Cruel Pacific: A Prologue
Opening the Great Ocean
Captain Cook and the American Corporal, John Ledyard
"To Glory Arise!" 1784-1844
The Pacific: Key to New American Wealth?
Searching for Something to Sell
Science and Shipping
Whitening the Seas, 1844-1869
Pushing Out Pacific Frontiers
The Clipper Ship, Maury the Pathfinder, and the Great Circle Route
Americans in Far Pacific Waters: Expeditions
Americans in Far Pacific Waters: Entrepreneurs
The Russian Connection
Girdling the Earth, 1869-1914
Suez, British Ascendancy, and American Maritime Decline
The Great Transcontinental Pacific Railroads
William Gilpin and the Cosmopolitan Railway
Steamships on Schedule: The Pacific Mail
Railroad Titans and the Beringian Route to Asia
Grasping the Western Pacific
Theodore Roosevelt, the Pacific, and the Panama Canal
Conquering the Skies, 1914-1941
World War I and Pacific Transport
The Early Air Age
The Zeppelin: First Over the Pacific
Juan Trippe and Pan American
"North to the Orient"
China Clipper
War, the North Pacific, and "The New American Frontier," 1941-1945
War Challenges Pacific Transport
New Routes and New Frontiers
Flying to Russia
America, the New Global Hub?
The Collapse of the American Merchant Marine
A New Northwest Passage
The Jet Revolution and American Leadership
Splendid Fantasies
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

JOHN CURTIS PERRY is Henry Willard Denison Professor of History and Director, North Pacific Program, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. In 1991 the Japanese government awarded an imperial decoration, the Order of the Sacred Treasure, to Perry for extraordinary contributions to American-Japanese relations.

Reviews

"I have read Facing West with absorbed interest, for this sweeping survey of American interests in the Northern Pacific over nearly two centuries is a very important book....It is an exciting contribution to the field of American studies. I found the book carefully and intelligently written, with wonderful use of significant quotations and occasional flashes of wit....A major work, impressive in scope and substance."-David Herbert Donald, Charles Warren Professor of American History Emeritus, Harvard University

?Perry traces U.S. interests in the North Pacific from the times of Captain Cook and John Ledyard to the present. According to Perry, most American interests were, and still are, predicated on the so-called 'myth of the Asian market.' The myth maintains that the region's residents have great buying power and that fortunes are awaiting those who avail themselves of trade opportunties in the area... Recommended for all categories of readers.?-Choice

"Perry traces U.S. interests in the North Pacific from the times of Captain Cook and John Ledyard to the present. According to Perry, most American interests were, and still are, predicated on the so-called 'myth of the Asian market.' The myth maintains that the region's residents have great buying power and that fortunes are awaiting those who avail themselves of trade opportunties in the area... Recommended for all categories of readers."-Choice