Following are some items that were mentioned during the 1 November 2012 Fieldstone Common interview with Eric Jay Dolin, author of When America First Met China.

The podcast of the interview is now available.

You can learn more about Eric Jay Dolin and his books from his website and you can follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

When American First Met China was published by the Liveright imprint of WW Norton & Company and copies are available for sale through Amazon.com and other booksellers.

You can watch a brief (less than 3 minute) video of When America First Met China to learn more about the book.

Some of the real life characters mentioned in the book were Robert Morris, financier of the American Revolution; and shipping magnates John Jacob Astor, Stephen Girard and Elias Hasket Derby.

The interview also touched on the history of tea and the environmental factors associated with the trade of seal and sea otter furs as well as sandalwood.

Harriet Low was the name of the young woman who snuck into Canton, China, defying a ban on women.

Cleopatra’s Barge was the Boston-built ship sold to the King of Hawaii.

Our sponsor for this episode was Houstory Publishing, makers of the Home History Book and the Heirloom Registry. Houstory Publishing is offering Fieldstone Common listeners a 20% discount on their brass plate Heirloom Registry Packages through November 15, 2012. Use the Offer Code: FIELDSTONEBRASS  — (IN ALL CAPS) checking out at the Heirloom Registry Marketplace.

The Liveright imprint of WW Norton & Company, the publisher of When America First Met China, donated two copies of the book that were given as a door prizes during the live show. One copy went to a listener in Boston and the other to one in Pennsylvania. A big thank you to the Liveright   for  their generosity!

Eric Jay Dolin

LIVE: THURSDAY, 1 November 2012 at 1:00pm EST

Listen in to Fieldstone Common this week as host Marian Pierre-Louis talks to Eric Jay Dolin, author of When America First Met China.

Brilliantly illuminating one of the least understood areas of American history, bestselling author Eric Jay Dolin now traces our fraught relationship with China back to its roots: the unforgiving nineteenth-century seas that separated a brash, rising naval power from a battered ancient empire.

It is a prescient fable for our time, one that surprisingly continues to shed light on our modern relationship with China. Indeed, the furious trade in furs, opium, and bêche-de-mer-a rare sea cucumber delicacy-might have catalyzed America’s emerging economy, but it also sparked an ecological and human rights catastrophe of such epic proportions, the reverberations can still be felt today.

Peopled with fascinating characters-from the “Financier of the Revolution” Robert Morris to the Chinese emperor Qianlong, who considered foreigners inferior beings-When America First Met China is a page-turning saga that explores a time many years ago when the desire for trade and profit first brought America to China’s door. 

Much of Dolin’s writing reflects his interest in wildlife, the environment, and American history. His books include Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America (W. W. Norton), Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America (W. W. Norton), the Smithsonian Book of National Wildlife Refuges, Snakehead: A Fish Out of Water, and Political Waters, a history of the degradation and cleanup of Boston Harbor. Leviathan was chosen as one of the best nonfiction books of 2007 by the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, and the Providence Journal.
Dolin and his family reside in Marblehead, Massachusetts.