Overview
About this video
Dr. Pete Millwood, who teaches East Asian history at the University of Melbourne, received wide acclaim for his 2022 book, Improbable Diplomats: How Ping-Pong Players, Musicians, and Scientists Remade US-China Relations. The book portrays the US–China rapprochement as a multifaceted process that extended beyond intergovernmental diplomacy to encompass cross-border exchanges among athletes, musicians, scientists, and others.
In this interview, Dr. Millwood discusses the new perspectives that his book brings to the history of US–China relations, as well as his ongoing research on “Taiwan networks” during the Cold War. We ask how focusing on connections among people across national borders can allow us to see Cold War history in new ways.
