For the next time I have to advise students re China/Taiwan/Ethnicity: “Melissa Brown”:https://www.stanford.edu/dept/anthropology/cgi-bin/web/?q=node/106. On both the American culture and intellectual history tip: “Michèle Lamont”:http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/soc/faculty/lamont/
On the selfhood in America angle, “Making the American Self: Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln”:http://www.amazon.com/Making-American-Self-Jonathan-Cultural/dp/0674165551/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215245284&sr=8-1 And on the ‘early modern europe/history of knowledge about the colonies’ theme: “Wonder and Science: Imagining Worlds in Early Modern Europe”:http://books.google.com/books?id=BiXjSTNLWIEC&pg=PA335&vq=recapturing+anthropology&lr=&source=gbs_search_s&sig=ACfU3U1bKYUd2unE23NXNQQFlfgVGr3eVQ#PPP1,M1