Harold Robert Isaacs (September 13, 1910[1] – July 9, 1986) was an American journalist and political scientist.

Isaacs graduated from Columbia University in 1929,[2] then briefly worked as a reporter for the New York Times.

The book includes dramatic descriptions of the Shanghai Massacre of 1927, in which nationalist forces killed thousands of known or suspected communists.

[4] He covered World War II in Southeast Asia and China for Newsweek Magazine.

By reviewing the popular and scholarly literature on Asia that appeared in the United States, and by interviewing many American experts, Isaacs identified four stages of American attitudes toward China: "benevolence", dominant 1905 to 1937; "admiration" (1937–1944); "disenchantment" (1944–1949); and "hostility" (after 1949).