Four hundred million customers:Carl Crow and the legacy of 1930s Sino-American trade

Carl Crow's Four Hundred Million Customers, providing first-hand advice on how to trade with China, was first published in 1937. Widely popular, the book won the National Book Award and went through multiple editions throughout the twentieth century. Most recently, in 2003, EastBridge publishers reprinted Crow's work. Even though nearly eight decades had elapsed since Crow first penned the book, EastBridge framed it as a source of contemporary expertise. This paper explores Crow's work and its recent republication. The notion that Crow's 1937 book held any relevance in 2003 illustrates much deeper ways in which Western-centric expectations of change in China continued to inform American foreign policy in the post-Cold War period.