This book is a cross-cultural study of two major literatures of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It traces the confluence of American and Chinese literatures in the early twentieth century, when modernism reached its full powers in Europe and America, and to a lesser extent, in China.

The author examines how classical Chinese literature affected the birth of American modernism as represented by Ezra Pound; he also investigates how American literature contributed to the formation and development of China's New Poetry.

This study deals with key players such as Whitman, Thoreau, Pound, Li Po, Lu Xun, and Guo Moruo in the cross-cultural transactions between America and China, though it also surveys other writers and political figures ranging from America to France to Russia to Latin America.

The study demonstrates that cultures circulate despite cultural, political, historical, social, religious, geographical, and ethnographic differences, enabling the flow of ideas and infiltration of thoughts throughout the world - making the idea of "national literatures" obsolete while promoting literary and cultural studies across national boundaries.