[If The Good Earth] is not about America, it is "American" in the Pulitzer way. The Good Earth is the story of how Wang Lung rises from his lowly position as a poor farmer to lordship of a great house; how his rich sons are softened by the idleness to which they are bred; and how the house of Wang will sink back into the poverty from which it arose, now that the great principle of honest toil has been forsaken. Thus, despite its Chinese setting, The Good Earth is another ethical-moral American drama acted out against the relentless cycle of history which raises up one generation and causes the downfall of the next. (p. 90)

One can see why The Good Earth might have appealed to the Pulitzer jurors as it did to many other American readers in the early 1930's—before the effects of the depression went...