Faculty at Home: Joyce Mao

Please Join Joyce Mao for a talk entitled “How China Made the ‘New Right’ New: A Brief History.”

Please register for this Zoom webinar right here. 

After Japanese bombs hit Pearl Harbor, the American Right stood at a crossroads. Generally isolationist, conservatives needed to forge their own foreign policy agenda if they wanted to remain politically viable. Joyce Mao, Associate Professor of History, will discuss how foreign policy changes following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949 and during the Cold War led to American conservatism as we know it today.

Born and (mostly) raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Joyce Mao received her BA, MA, and PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on the intersections between American foreign affairs and national politics during the Cold War era, with special attention to US-Asia relations. She is the author of Asia First: China and the Making of Modern American Conservatism, while her current project “Porcelain and Steel” examines the role of Chinese economic development in American grand strategy. A member of the Middlebury History Department since 2008, she teaches courses that explore topics such as the U.S. and the World since 1898, Pacific Rim relations, the Cold War at home and abroad, and American conservatism since the New Deal.