The Lives of Chang and Eng

“A massive feat of archival and cultural research that humanizes Chang and Eng.” — WNC Magazine

“Orser’s well-crafted and meticulously researched account of the lives of Chang and Eng makes a wide-ranging contribution to U.S. history, touching on everything from race and sectionalism to international relations and the politics of family and sexuality. As such, it will be of broad interest to antebellum social and cultural historians and will likely stand as the definitive biography of Chang and Eng Bunker for years to come.” — Journal of the Early Republic

“Meticulously researched. . . . Orser is an expert on his subject.” — The Journal of Southern History

“Recounts Chang and Eng’s precarious traversal with penetrating insight.”—New York Review of Books

“This story of two individual men is one fascinating book.” — Terri Schlichenmeyer

“With patient research, artful writing, and a sure sense of the cultural and historical contexts where Chang and Eng Bunker performed and lived (all the while skirting sensation and avoiding condescension), Joseph Andrew Orser delivers a humane and ultimately moving portrait of the twins and their families. His book gives us a compelling account of the changing racial and cultural landscapes of the United States in the nineteenth century but reminds us that the twins have yet to finish their cultural work. The Lives of Chang and Eng lets them perform once more for us.” — Ann Fabian, Rutgers University

“Joseph Andrew Orser’s history of Chang and Eng Bunker sensitively illuminates the social contexts in which they traveled and the many shifting representations of them in American culture. Through careful research in previously untapped archives, Orser gleans fresh details about their work and reception as they toured, helping us understand the decisions they made and what they endured as self-promoting curiosities in a commercially driven, racialized culture.” — John Kuo Wei Tchen, New York University