Becoming Yellow: A Short History of Racial Thinking

摘要

This f ascinating study explores the history of Western thinking about the East Asian race, detailing how Westerners originally regarded Asians as honorary 'whites', then as benign 'yellows' and finally as nasty yellows, ending in the frightening 'Yellow Peril' frenzy of the late nineteenth century. At the start of the European Age of Exploration, East Asian peoples were almost uniformly described as white. This positive description served to explain the wealth and sophistication of East Asians, who were assumed to be the best candidates for Christianisation. Why then, were they turned into yellows?