New Books in Chinese Studies

Ken Wilcox, "The China Business Conundrum: Ensure That "Win-Win" Doesn't Mean Western Companies Lose Twice" (John Wiley & Sons, 2024)

01 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The China Business Conundrum: Ensure That "Win-Win" Doesn't Mean Western Companies Lose Twice (Wiley, 2024) describes former CEO of Silicon Valley Ba...

Samantha A. Vortherms, "Manipulating Authoritarian Citizenship: Security, Development, and Local Membership in China" (Stanford UP, 2024)

30 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The redistribution of political and economic rights is inherently unequal in autocratic societies. Autocrats routinely divide their populations into i...

Chris Berry et al., "Taiwanese-Language Cinema: Rediscovered and Reconsidered" (Edinburgh UP, 2024)

27 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Taiwanese-Language Cinema: Rediscovered and Reconsidered (Edinburgh UP, 2024), edited by Chris Berry, Wafa Ghermani, Corrado Neri, and Ming-yeh T. Ra...

Talking Thai Politics: Why Thai Politics isn’t All About China

22 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How far does geopolitics relate to domestic political leanings? Are politically progressive Thais more likely to be pro-US, and more politically conse...

Peter Worthing, "General He Yingqin: The Rise and Fall of Nationalist China" (Cambridge UP, 2016)

17 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

General He Yingqin: The Rise and Fall of Nationalist China (Cambridge UP, 2016) is a revisionist study of the career of General He Yingqin, one of t...

Lizhi Liu, "From Click to Boom: The Political Economy of E-Commerce in China" (Princeton UP, 2024)

16 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How do states build vital institutions for market development? Too often, governments confront technical or political barriers to providing the rule o...

Meta-Practice (on Chinese Medicine)

11 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today I sit down with Volker Scheid, an interdisciplinary scholar and longtime practitioner of Chinese medicine. Together, we take an intellectual dee...

Why Can’t the US Compete with China in Infrastructure?

07 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, Dr. Shahar Hameiri and Dr. Lee Jones discuss the political economy and financing behind global infrastructure development, with a foc...

John Duffus, "Backstage in Hong Kong: A Life with the Philharmonic, Broadway Musicals and Classical Superstars" (Blacksmith Books, 2024)

07 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today, the Hong Kong Philharmonic is one of the world’s great symphony orchestras. But when John Duffus landed in Hong Kong in 1979 as the Philharmo...

Jia Tan, "Digital Masquerade: Feminist Rights and Queer Media in China" (NYU Press, 2023)

29 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Digital Masquerade: Feminist Rights and Queer Media in China (NYU Press, 2023) offers a trenchant and singular analysis of the convergence of digital...

Eric Helleiner, "The Neomercantilists: A Global Intellectual History" (Cornell UP, 2021)

29 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

At a time when critiques of free trade policies are gaining currency, The Neomercantilists: A Global Intellectual History (Cornell UP, 2021) helps m...

Why Taiwan Matters: A Short History of a Small Island That Will Dictate Our Future

25 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Why should we focus on Taiwan to understand the future risks facing the world? Professor Kerry Brown, Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the...

India Rising: Navigating the Second Cold War in South Asia from Nepal to the Maldives

23 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What is the role of India in the Second Cold War (SCW) in South Asia? How do local histories, internal politics, and subnational dynamics shape relati...

Tamara Jacka, "Ginkgo Village: Trauma and Transformation in Rural China" (Anu Press, 2023)

21 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Ginkgo Village: Trauma and Transformation in Rural China (Anu Press, 2023) provides an original and powerfully intimate bottom-up perspective on Chin...

Anna Lora-Wainwright, "Resigned Activism: Living with Pollution in Rural China" (MIT Press, 2021)

20 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Resigned Activism: Living with Pollution in Rural China (MIT Press, 2021) by Dr. Anna Lora-Wainwright digs deep into the paradoxes, ambivalences, and...

Li-Hsiang Lisa Rosenlee, "Confucian Feminism: A Practical Ethic for Life" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

20 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Confucian Feminism: A Practical Ethic for Life (Bloomsbury, 2024), Li-Hsiang Lisa Rosenlee expands the theoretical horizons of feminism by using ...

Andrew G. Walder, “China Under Mao: A Revolution Derailed” (Harvard UP, 2015)

18 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

"With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that 1949 was actually the beginning, not the end, of the Chinese revolution." Building from this premise,...

Xiaoming Wang, "Muslim Chinese: The Hui in Rural Ningxia" (de Gruyter, 2019)

14 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

As the predominantly Muslim Chinese who claim ancestry from Persian and Arabic-speaking regions in Central Asia and the Middle East, the Hui people in...

Helena F. S. Lopes, "Neutrality and Collaboration in South China: Macau during the Second World War" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

11 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The South China enclave of Macau was the first and last European colonial settlement in East Asia and a territory at the crossroads of different empir...

Civil Society in China: How Society Speaks to the State

11 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What skills and strategies enable civil society to be effective under authoritarian rule? Dr. Runya Qiaoan, assistant professor and senior researcher ...

Satoru Hashimoto, "Afterlives of Letters: The Transnational Origins of Modern Literature in China, Japan, and Korea" (Columbia UP, 2023)

11 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

When East Asia opened itself to the world in the nineteenth century, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean intellectuals had shared notions of literature beca...

Victor C. Shih, "Coalitions of the Weak: Elite Politics in China from Mao's Stratagem to the Rise of Xi" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

10 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Coalitions of the Weak (Cambridge University Press, 2022), Victor C. Shih investigates how leaders of one-party autocracies seek to dominate the ...

S4E9 The Fragility of China: A Conversation with Dennis Unkovic

09 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of Madison's Notes, we sit down with Dennis Unkovic to discuss his latest book, The Fragility of China (Encounter Books, 2024). Unk...

Zach Fredman, "The Tormented Alliance: American Servicemen and the Occupation of China, 1941–1949" (UNC Press, 2022)

09 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Tormented Alliance: American Servicemen and the Occupation of China, 1941–1949 (UNC Press, 2022) explores the wartime partnership between China...

Critique, Wonder, and Chinese Anatomy, with Lan A. Li

08 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of the Blue Beryl Podcast, Dr Pierce Salguero sits down with the show’s producer, Lan A. Li, a historian of Chinese science, medicin...

Jeffrey Ding, "Technology and the Rise of Great Powers: How Diffusion Shapes Economic Competition" (Princeton UP, 2024)

05 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

When scholars and policymakers consider how technological advances affect the rise and fall of great powers, they draw on theories that center the mom...

Sean McMeekin, "To Overthrow the World: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Communism" (Basic Books, 2024)

04 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

When the USSR collapsed in 1991, the world was certain that Communism was dead. Today, three decades later, it is clear that it was not. While Russia ...

James A. Anderson, "The Dong World and Imperial China's Southwest Silk Road: Trade, Security, and State Formation" (U Washington Press, 2024)

30 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

From the eighth to thirteenth centuries along China’s rugged southern periphery, trade in tribute articles and an interregional horse market thrived...

Ian Williams, "Vampire State: The Rise and Fall of the Chinese Economy (Birlinn, 2024)

27 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

State capitalism. Socialism with Chinese characteristics. A socialist market economy. There have been numerous descriptions of the Chinese economy. Ho...

Kerry Brown, "The Great Reversal: Britain, China and the 400-Year Contest for Power" (Yale UP, 2024)

26 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the sixteenth century, Queen Elizabeth I tried to send several letters to her Chinese counterpart, the Wan Li Emperor. The letters tried to ask the...

Caterina Fugazzola, "Words Like Water: Queer Mobilization and Social Change in China" (Temple UP, 2023)

26 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

After China officially “decriminalized” same-sex behavior in 1997, both the visibility and public acceptance of tongzhi, an inclusive identity te...

Max Hirsh and Till Mostowlansky, "Infrastructure and the Remaking of Asia" (U Hawaii Press, 2022)

24 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the twenty-first century, infrastructure has undergone a seismic shift from West to East. Once concentrated in Europe and North America, global inf...

Andrea E. Pia, "Cutting the Mass Line: Water, Politics, and Climate in Southwest China" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2024)

20 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On the podcast today, I am joined by anthropologist Andrea Pia (London School of Economics and Political Science) to talk about his new book, Cutting...

Gil Hizi, "Self-Development Ethics and Politics in China Today: A Keyword Approach" (Amsterdam UP, 2024)

15 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On this podcast today, I am joined by three scholars: postdoctoral fellow and lecturer at Goethe University Frankfurt, Gil Hizi; assistant professor a...

Meg Rithmire, "Precarious Ties: Business and the State in Authoritarian Asia" (Oxford UP, 2023)

14 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Developing Asia has been the site of some of the last century's fastest growing economies as well as some of the world's most durable authoritarian re...

Thomas White, "China's Camel Country: Livestock and Nation-Building at a Pastoral Frontier" (U Washington Press, 2024)

14 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

China today positions itself as a model of state-led environmentalism. On the country’s arid rangelands, grassland conservation policies have target...

Peter Rose, "The Good War of Consul Reeves" (Blacksmith Books, 2024)

12 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Macau was supposed to be a sleepy post for John Reeves, the British consul for the Portuguese colony on China’s southern coast. He arrived, alone, i...

Yiu Fai Chow et al., "It’s My Party: Tat Ming Pair and the Postcolonial Politics of Popular Music in Hong Kong" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024)

07 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It’s My Party: Tat Ming Pair and the Postcolonial Politics of Popular Music in Hong Kong (Palgrave Macmillan 2024) is unique in focusing on just o...

Tarryn Li-Min Chun, "Revolutionary Stagecraft: Theater, Technology, and Politics in Modern China" (U Michigan Press, 2024), "Revolutionary Stagecraft: Theater, Technology, and Politics in Modern China" (U Michigan Press, 2024)

30 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Revolutionary Stagecraft: Theater, Technology, and Politics in Modern China (University of Michigan Press, 2024) offers a fascinating approach to m...

Eyck Freymann, "One Belt One Road: Chinese Power Meets the World" (Harvard UP, 2020)

25 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

China’s One Belt One Road policy, or OBOR, represents the largest infrastructure program in history. Yet little is known about it with any certainty...

Francisca Yuenki Lai, "Maid to Queer: Asian Labor Migration and Female Same-Sex Desires" (Hong Kong UP, 2021)

25 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Maid to Queer: Asian Labor Migration and Female Same-Sex Desires (Hong Kong UP, 2021) is the first book about Asian female migrant workers who devel...

Uluğ Kuzuoğlu, "Codes of Modernity: Chinese Scripts in the Global Information Age" (Columbia UP, 2023)

23 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the late nineteenth century, Chinese reformers and revolutionaries believed that there was something fundamentally wrong with the Chinese writing s...

Le Lin, "The Fruits of Opportunism: Noncompliance and the Evolution of China's Supplemental Education Industry" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

21 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

An in-depth examination of the regulatory, entrepreneurial, and organizational factors contributing to the expansion and transformation of China’s s...

The Dragon and the Nguzunguzu

19 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Nguzunguzu is the traditional figurehead which was formerly affixed to canoes in the Solomon Islands. In this episode, Julie Yu-Wen Chen talks to R...

Muslimness in China

09 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode Salman Sayyid talks to Haiyun Ma about Muslimness in China. This is the second episode in this series which addresses this topic: in ...

Na'ou Liu, "Urban Scenes" (Cambria Press, 2023)

07 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

"In this tango palace everything was swaying rhythmically to and fro, bodies of men and women, beams of colored light, brilliant wine glasses, red and...

The Dragonbear in the Geopolitics of the 21st Century

05 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What is the “dragonbear”? It is a metophor of an emerging strategic alliance between Russia and China. In this episdoe, Julie Yu-Wen Chen talks to...

Forgotten Ummah--Muslims in China

02 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is the first of two episodes this season on Muslims in China. Here Claudia Radiven and Chella Ward talk to Darren Blyer about his book T...

Everyday Architecture in Context: Public Markets in Hong Kong (1842-1981) (Chinese U of Hong Kong Press, 2023)

01 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How do public markets, as ordinary as they seem, carry the weight of a city’s history? How do such everyday buildings reflect a city’s changing po...

On Sino-Vietnamese Border Relations

31 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, host SEAC Director John Sidel talks with Dr Qingfei Yin, SEAC Associate and Assistant Professor of International History at LSE. Dr Q...

Matthew H. Sommer, "The Fox Spirit, the Stone Maiden, and Other Transgender Histories from Late Imperial China" (Columbia UP, 2024)

30 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Fox Spirit, the Stone Maiden, and Other Transgender Histories from Late Imperial China (Columbia University Press, 2024) is a fascinating study o...

Kristie Flannery, "Piracy and the Making of the Spanish Pacific World" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024)

28 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Piracy and the Making of the Spanish Pacific World (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024) offers a new interpretation of Spanish colonial rule in t...

Christina Yi et al., "Passing, Posing, Persuasion: Cultural Production and Coloniality in Japan's East Asian Empire" (U Hawaii Press, 2023)

27 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Passing, Posing, Persuasion: Cultural Production and Coloniality in Japan's East Asian Empire (U Hawaii Press, 2023) interrogates the intersections ...

Ed Pulford, "Past Progress: Time and Politics at the Borders of China, Russia, and Korea" (Stanford UP, 2024)

25 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Anxiety may have been abounding in the old Cold War West that progress - whether political or economic - has been reversed, but for citizens of former...

Mark Baker, "Pivot of China: Spatial Politics and Inequality in Modern Zhengzhou" (Harvard UP, 2024)

24 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

China’s modern history has been marked by deep spatial inequalities between regions, between cities, and between rural and urban areas. Contemporary...

Steven K. Bailey, "Target Hong Kong: A True Story of U.S. Navy Pilots at War" (Osprey, 2024)

23 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In January 1945, the final year of the Pacific War, Japanese-held Hong Kong became the site of coordinated attacks by the U.S. Navy on Japanese warshi...

Muslim Literacies in China

23 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Tazin Abdullah speaks with Dr Ibrar Bhatt about heritage literacies, particularly as they are practiced by Chinese Muslims. Bhatt is the author of ...

Stephanie Balkwill, "The Women Who Ruled China: Buddhism, Multiculturalism, and Governance in the Sixth Century" (U California Press, 2024)

20 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the late fifth century, a girl whose name has been forgotten by history was born at the edge of the Chinese empire. By the time of her death, she h...

Eric Reinders, "Reading Tolkien in Chinese: Religion, Fantasy and Translation" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

20 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Approaching translations of Tolkien's works as stories in their own right, Reading Tolkien in Chinese: Religion, Fantasy and Translation (Bloomsbury...

Ying Qian, "Revolutionary Becomings: Documentary Media in Twentieth-Century China" (Columbia UP, 2023)

17 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome to another episode of New Books in Chinese Studies. Today, I will be talking to Columbia University professor Ying Qian about her new book, R...

Sino-Pacific Relations: A Discussion with Rodolfo Maggio

15 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The 2024 Solomon Islands elections were surprisingly peaceful. The deepening economic inequalities, widespread corruption, rogue demagogues manipulati...

Fantastic Fauna from China to Crimea: Image-Making in Eurasian Nomadic Societies, 700 BCE-500 CE

14 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Numerous Iron-Age nomadic alliances flourished along the 5000-mile Eurasian steppe route. From Crimea to the Mongolian grassland, nomadic image-making...

Viren Murthy, "Pan-Asianism and the Legacy of the Chinese Revolution" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

13 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Recent proposals to revive the ancient Silk Road for the contemporary era and ongoing Western interest in China’s growth and development have led to...

Huan Jin, "The Collapse of Heaven: The Taiping Civil War and Chinese Literature and Culture, 1850-1880" (Harvard U Asia Center, 2024)

13 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Collapse of Heaven: The Taiping Civil War and Chinese Literature and Culture, 1850-1880 (Harvard University Asia Center, 2024) investigates a lon...

Michelle T. King, "Chop Fry Watch Learn: Fu Pei-Mei and the Making of Modern Chinese Food" (Norton, 2024)

03 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1971, the New York Times called the Taiwanese-Chinese chef, Fu Pei-Mei, the “the Julia Child of Chinese cooking.” But, as Michelle T. King no...

J. Megan Greene, "Building a Nation at War: Building a Nation at War: Transnational Knowledge Networks and the Development of China during and after World War II" (Harvard UP, 2022)

27 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Building a Nation at War: Building a Nation at War: Transnational Knowledge Networks and the Development of China during and after World War II (Harv...

Jin Feng, "The Transpacific Flow: Creative Writing Programs in China" (Association for Asian Studies, 2024)

27 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 2009, Fudan University launched China’s first MFA program in creative writing, spurring a wave of such programs in Chinese universities. Many of ...

Living with Digital Surveillance in China

24 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How do Chinese citizens make sense of digital surveillance and live with it? What narratives do they come up with to deal with the daily and all-encom...

Orazio Coco, "Sino-Italian Political and Economic Relations: From the Treaty of Friendship to the Second World War" (Routledge, 2024)

23 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Sino-Italian Political and Economic Relations: From the Treaty of Friendship to the Second World War (Routledge, 2024) presents a comprehensive narr...

Andreas Fulda, "Germany and China: How Entanglement Undermines Freedom, Prosperity and Security" (Bloombury, 2024)

22 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Germany and China: How Entanglement Undermines Freedom, Prosperity and Security (Bloomsbury, 2024) is a groundbreaking book, of which the findings h...

The Religious Landscape of Taiwan: A Discussion with Yushuang Yao

21 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

How is Buddhism seen and practiced in Taiwan? And how do neighbouring countries influence Taiwanese Buddhism? In this episode we explore the religious...

Qian Wei, "The Governance of Philanthropic Foundations in Authoritarian China" (Routledge, 2022)

18 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Chinese philanthropic foundations navigate a uniquely challenging terrain shaped by authoritarian governance. The Governance of Philanthropic Foundat...

John Keane and Baogang He, "China's Galaxy Empire: Wealth, Power, War, and Peace in the New Chinese Century" (Oxford UP, 2023)

17 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In China's Galaxy Empire: Wealth, Power, War, and Peace in the New Chinese Century (Oxford University Press, 2024), authors Dr. John Keane and Dr. B...

Casey James Miller, "Inside the Circle: Queer Culture and Activism in Northwest China" (Rutgers UP, 2023)

11 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

After the end of the Maoist era in the People's Republic of China, the rise of queer communities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has generat...

Thomas Larkin, "The China Firm: American Elites and the Making of British Colonial Society" (Columbia UP, 2024)

07 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

What roles did Americans play in the expanding global empires of the nineteenth century? In The China Firm: American Elites and the Making of Britis...

Scott Crawford, "The Han-Xiongnu War, 133 BC-89 AD: The Struggle of China and a Steppe Empire Told Through Its Key Figures (Pen & Sword, 2023)

06 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For two centuries, the Xiongnu people–a vast nomadic empire that covered modern-day Siberia, Inner Mongolia, Gansu and Xinjiang—were one of the Ha...

Vivien Marsh, "Seeking Truth in International TV News: China, CGTN, and the BBC" (Routledge, 2023)

04 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Seeking Truth in International News: China, CGTN and the BBC (Routledge, 2023) Dr Vivien Marsh analyses the differences between journalistic tr...

Jonathan A. Seitz, "Protestant Missionaries in China: Robert Morrison and Early Sinology" (U Notre Dame Press, 2024)

03 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

With a focus on Robert Morrison, Protestant Missionaries in China: Robert Morrison and Early Sinology (U Notre Dame Press, 2024) evaluates the role ...

Yi-Han Lin, "Fang Si-Chi's First Love Paradise" (HarperVia, 2024)

31 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, Jenna Tang shares with us her translation of Lin Yi-Han's Fang Si-Chi's First Love Paradise: A Novel (HarperVia, 2024), one of the...

Kazushi Minami, "People's Diplomacy: How Americans and Chinese Transformed US-China Relations During the Cold War" (Cornell UP, 2024)

31 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In People's Diplomacy: How Americans and Chinese Transformed US-China Relations During the Cold War (Cornell UP, 2024), Kazushi Minami shows how th...

Benjamin Brose, "Embodying Xuanzang: The Postmortem Travels of a Buddhist Pilgrim" (U Hawaii Press, 2023)

23 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Xuanzang (600/602–664) was one of the most accomplished and consequential monks in the history of East Asian Buddhism. Celebrated for his sixteen-ye...

Peter Harmsen, "Bernhard Sindberg: The Schindler of Nanjing" (Casemate, 2024)

23 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In December 1937, Bernhard Sindberg arrives at a cement factory outside of Nanjing. He’s one of just two foreigners, and he gets there just weeks be...

Christine Abigail L. Tan, "Freedom's Frailty: Self-Realization in the Neo-Daoist Philosophy of Guo Xiang's Zhuangzhi" (SUNY Press, 2024)

21 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Christine Tan argues that the most fruitful way to read the Zhuangzi, if one is seeking political and ethical insight, is through the Jin Dynasty com...

Jennifer Liu, "Indoctrinating the Youth: Secondary Education in Wartime China and Postwar Taiwan, 1937-1960" (U Hawaii Press, 2024)

18 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Indoctrinating the Youth: Secondary Education in Wartime China and Postwar Taiwan, 1937-1960 (U Hawaii Press, 2024) examines how the Guomindang (GMD ...

Wei Wu, "Esoteric Buddhism in China: Engaging Japanese and Tibetan Traditions, 1912–1949" (Columbia UP, 2023)

17 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

During the Republican period (1912–1949) and after, many Chinese Buddhists sought inspiration from non-Chinese Buddhist traditions, showing a partic...

En Li, "Betting on the Civil Service Examinations: The Lottery in Late Qing China" (Harvard UP, 2023)

17 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

During the Qing dynasty in China, a wide variety of people participated in a lottery game named weixing (“surname guessing”), which had particip...

Elizabeth O’Brien Ingleson, "Made in China: When US-China Interests Converged to Transform Global Trade" (Harvard UP, 2024)

16 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For centuries, the vastness of the Chinese market tempted foreign companies in search of customers. But in the 1970s, when the United States and China...

Jennifer Dorothy Lee, "Anxiety Aesthetics: Maoist Legacies in China, 1978-1985" (U California Press, 2024)

16 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Today I had the great pleasure of talking to Associate Professor Jennifer Dorothy Lee on her new book, Anxiety Aesthetics: Maoist Legacies in China, ...

Ban Wang, "At Home in Nature: Technology, Labor, and Critical Ecology in Modern China" (Duke UP, 2022)

15 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In his latest book At Home in Nature: Technology, Labor, and Critical Ecology in Modern China (Duke UP, 2022), Ban Wang uses an ecocritical lens to ...

Scott W. Gregory, "Bandits in Print: The Water Margin and the Transformations of the Chinese Novel" (Cornell UP, 2023)

13 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Bandits in Print: "The Water Margin" and the Transformations of the Chinese Novel (Cornell UP, 2023) uses the classic novel The Water Margin (Shuih...

Ian Johnson, "Sparks: China's Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future" (Oxford UP, 2023)

09 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Even as most contemporary states look to history in order to legitimize their existence in some way or other, the past – and narrations of it – ho...

Jeremy Garlick, "Advantage China: Agent of Change in an Era of Global Disruption" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

09 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

China’s rise to global prominence is a pretty good contender for the most important world development in the past 30 years. But now the question is ...

Shu Yang, "Untamed Shrews: Negotiating New Womanhood in Modern China" (Cornell UP, 2023)

02 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

If you are familiar with traditional Chinese literature, you have likely come across the figure of the “shrew,” a morally threatening woman who is...

Melody Yunzi Li, "Transpacific Cartographies: Narrating the Contemporary Chinese Diaspora in the United States" (Rutgers UP, 2023)

30 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Transpacific Cartographies: Narrating the Contemporary Chinese Diaspora in the U.S. (Rutgers University Press, 2023) examines how contemporary Chine...

Alexander Statman, "A Global Enlightenment: Western Progress and Chinese Science" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

25 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Alexander Statman's book A Global Enlightenment: Western Progress and Chinese Science (U Chicago Press, 2023) is a revisionist history of the idea ...

Philipp Demgenski, "Seeking a Future for the Past: Space, Power, and Heritage in a Chinese City" (U Michigan Press, 2024)

22 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In Seeking a Future for the Past: Space, Power, and Heritage in a Chinese City (U Michigan Press, 2024), Philipp Demgenski examines the complexities...

Robin Visser, "Questioning Borders: Ecoliteratures of China and Taiwan" (Columbia UP, 2023)

18 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Indigenous knowledge of local ecosystems often challenges settler-colonial cosmologies that naturalize resource extraction and the relocation of nomad...

Jonathan Chatwin, "The Southern Tour: Deng Xiaoping and the Fight for China's Future" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

18 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Deng Xiaoping’s 1992 Southern Tour has become a milestone in Chinese economic history. Historians and commentators credit Deng’s visit to Guangzho...

Cathy Yue Wang, "Snake Sisters and Ghost Daughters: Feminist Adaptations of Traditional Tales in Chinese Fantasy" (Wayne State UP, 2023)

17 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Contemporary Chinese film and literature often draw on time-honored fantastical texts and tales which were founded in the milieu of patriarchy, parent...

Astrid Møller-Olsen, "Sensing the Sinophone: Urban Memoryscapes in Contemporary Fiction" (Cambria, 2022)

16 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Through an original framework of literary sensory studies, Sensing the Sinophone: Urban Memoryscapes in Contemporary Fiction (Cambria, 2022) provid...