Bridging Minds Across the Pacific offers new insight into U.S.-China relations by looking at the far-reaching dynamics of educational exchanges between these two countries. Deng Xiaoping’s milestone decision in 1978 to send a large number of Chinese nationals to study in the United States has fostered increased cross-Pacific dialogue among academics. In recent years a tidal wave of ‘returnees’ who studied abroad have moved back to China. Cheng Li and this volume’s distinguished contributors examine how these individuals are working to shape their home country, especially in social science curriculum development, program-building, and research, and in public policy formation. This book explores whether sweeping educational exchanges between these two profoundly different countries have promoted productive mutual understanding.