UC Press Blog

The summer issue of the Pacific Historical Review investigates Cold War politics and the Great Leap Forward, oil drilling in Santa Barbara, and California’s first generation of Japanese American voters. Check out previews of these articles below. 

Porcelain and Steel: How China’s Economy Shaped the American Cold War in Asia, 1953–1966
By Joyce Mao

When did America’s view of the Chinese economy begin to sour? Historian Joyce Mao argues that the Great Leap Forward (1958–1961) marked a pivotal change for Sino-U.S. relations and for U.S. strategy in Asia during the Cold War. An unmitigated disaster that cost tens of millions of lives, Chairman Mao Zedong’s development plan seemed to fulfill longstanding racial and cultural tropes about China’s inability to become a modern, sophisticated nation. But even as they roundly dismissed the prospect of Chinese development, then or in the future, officials in Washington worried the Great Leap could dangerously heighten China’s influence in the so-called “Third World.” To teach China a lesson, they moved to implement massive capitalist development backed by military intervention, a response that provides vital context for attempts to engage with Beijing during the 1960s even as U.S. policy urged aggressive anti-communist actions like the Asian Development Bank and escalation of war in Vietnam.

Oil Has to Come from Someone’s Backyard: The Geography of Resistance and Accommodation in Santa Barbara County, California, 1922–1969 
by Michael Adamson

Most of us use fossil fuels, but no one seems to be too keen on living near extraction zones. This is an issue that historian Michael Adamson tackles, setting the scene in Santa Barbara, California, a community famously opposed to oil drilling. Adamson argues that opposition to oil drilling in Southern California in the interwar period varied based on place and time. Citizens were never entirely opposed to drilling or oil wells, but they objected to where these sites were placed in relation to urban communities. Meanwhile, Santa Barbarans showed widespread support for vehicles as a means of transportation within the growing county and urban region. They did not necessarily oppose oil drilling, only drilling that threatened their immediate community and quality of life. Adamson’s article reveals the tension in communities that need oil for transportation, as well as ideas about urban areas versus rural spaces that some view as “empty.” 

Left or Right, Loyal or Disloyal: Ideology, Partisanship, and Empire in the Constructing Japanese American Politics
By Vivian Yan–Gonzalez

Historically, Asian Americans were often seen as “perpetual foreigners” in the United States. Regardless of legal citizenship status, Asian Americans were viewed as outside the body politic. Historian Vivian Yan-Gonzalez explores California’s first group of Japanese American voters in the interwar period, showing how factors such as race, state-building, and international relationships produced a distrust of Japanese Americans—a distrust that often limited what they felt comfortable saying and doing politically. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the environment worsened for Japanese American voters. Military and state demands for loyalty meant Japanese Americans had to demonstrate intense allegiance to the United States, limiting the range of political viewpoints they could express. 

Not yet a subscriber? Purchase an individual subscription and/or ask your library to subscribe. You may also purchase print copies of the Summer 2025 issue of Pacific Historical Review (issue 94.3), as well as other individual issues of PHR, on the journal’s site. 

We publish PHR in partnership with the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association.