LIBRARY GUIDE TO HST 4980 - Historical Research Seminar (Li)

In 1972 the Chinese ping pong team visited the US, the first time an unofficial Chinese group came to the US after 23 of hostile relations. One of their stops was Oakland University. Here are primary sources on the visit:

• "Chinese Welcomed at Meadow Brook Hall," OU Newsletter, April 18, 1972
• "Chinese Visit OU," OU Alumni News, Summer 1972
• "Ping Pong Diplomacy at Meadow Brook Hall," Focus, April 19, 1972
• photographs of the visit in the University Archives Photograph collection
• The Detroit Free Press Historical has many articles on the Chinese team's visit in Michigan
• The New York Times Historical has articles on their visit to the US
• Reveal Digital: Independent Voices -- a database of underground magazines -- has articles from student magazines of the 1970s on the Chinese team's visit and US-China relations
• The papers of President O'Dowd (then president of OU) may contain information on the Chinese visit to OU

Other sources on the Chinese team visit:

• Ruth Eckstein, "Ping Pong Diplomacy: A View from behind the Scenes," The Journal of American-East Asian Relations 2, no. 3 (1993): 327-42.
• papers of Alexander Eckstein (Bentley Historical Library at UM)
• papers of Ruth Eckstein (Bentley Historical Library at UM)

Other sources in the archives document the importance of Chinese studies at OU - a trait common to many new American colleges in the post-Sputnik era:

• OU course catalogs show the role of "area studies" (studies in Chinese and Indian civilizations) and of foreign languages
• the records of the College of Arts and Sciences (see "area studies")

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• Foreign Relations of the United States
  A series (also available in print in the library in the documents collection - S 1.1:) that provides copies of important documents in foreign relations history.
• Government documents
• International History Declassified
  Digitized documents including many about Chinese-US relations, from the Wilson Center Digital Archive
• Newsreels ( Alexander Street Video )
  TV news of the period, many about China

Jian Chen, Mao's China and the Cold War (online)

James Peck, Washington's China: The National Security World, the Cold War, and the Origins of Globalism (online)

Historical Abstracts
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The Cambridge History of China
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