New Books in Chinese Studies

The Forgotten Children of the Second Sino-Japanese War

03 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Disparaged as "Japanese devils" and "half-breed," some children with Chinese mothers and Japanese fathers born during the Second Sino-Japanese war lon...

Joshua Neves, "Underglobalization: Beijing's Media Urbanism and the Chimera of Legitimacy" (Duke UP, 2020)

03 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Joshua Neves’ Underglobalization: Beijing's Media Urbanism and the Chimera of Legitimacy (Duke University Press, 2020) examines the interplay of ...

Wen Liu, et al., "Reorienting Hong Kong’s Resistance: Leftism, Decoloniality, and Internationalism" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022)

02 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, I talk to two of the editors of Reorienting Hong Kong’s Resistance: Leftism, Decoloniality, and Internationalism (Palgrave MacMil...

Nathaniel Isaacson, "Celestial Empire: The Emergence of Chinese Science Fiction" (Wesleyan UP, 2017)

31 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Chinese science fiction has been booming lately through the translation of books like Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem, but where did the current...

Clive Hamilton and Mareike Ohlberg, "Hidden Hand: Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World" (Oneworld, 2021)

30 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Hidden Hand: Exposing How the Chinese Communist Party is Reshaping the World (Oneworld, 2021), Dr. Clive Hamilton and Dr. Mareike Ohlberg explore...

Jonathan Fulton, "Routledge Handbook on China–Middle East Relations" (Routledge, 2021)

27 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Have you ever read Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises? When asked how he went bankrupt, a character replies, “Gradually, then suddenly.” In this con...

Kerry Brown and Gemma Chenger Deng, "China Through European Eyes: 800 Years of Cultural and Intellectual Encounter" (World Scientific, 2022)

26 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Europeans have been writing about China for centuries–ever since The Travels of Marco Polo described it as a faraway and mystical kingdom. Europea...

Pandemic Perspectives 12: Politicizing the COVID Pandemic

25 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this Pandemic Perspectives Podcast, Ideas Roadshow founder and host Howard Burton talks to Michael Berry, Director of the UCLA Center for Chinese...

Mayfair Yang, "Chinese Environmental Ethics: Religions, Ontologies, and Practices" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2021)

24 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

An interdisciplinary collection in the new field of environmental humanities, Chinese Environmental Ethics: Religions, Ontologies, and Practices (Ro...

Jiwei Xiao, "Telling Details: Chinese Fiction, World Literature" (Routledge, 2022)

23 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What is a detail? How is it different from xijie, its Chinese counterpart? Is "reading for the details" fundamentally different from "reading for the...

Rana Siu Inboden, "China and the International Human Rights Regime: 1982–2017" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

23 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In China and the International Human Rights Regime (Cambridge University Press, 2021), Rana Siu Inboden examines the evolution of China’s posture ...

Andrew D. Morris, "Defectors from the PRC to Taiwan, 1960-1989: The Anti-Communist Righteous Warriors" (Routledge, 2022)

20 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Defections from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) were an important part of the narrative of the Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan during the Col...

Ethnographic Perspectives on Change and Continuity in China

20 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The People’s Republic of China has undergone tumultuous and varied sociocultural developments over the course of its history. In this episode, Dr. S...

Corey Byrnes, "Fixing Landscape: A Techno-Poetic History of China’s Three Gorges" (Columbia UP, 2019)

19 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Corey Byrnes’ Fixing Landscape: A Techno-Poetic History of China’s Three Gorges (Columbia University Press, 2019) is a work of considerable hist...

Christopher Carothers, "Corruption Control in Authoritarian Regimes: Lessons from East Asia" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

17 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Political corruption remains … one of the most intriguing and challenging issues in social science research and public policy, perhaps because altho...

Mark L. Clifford, "Today Hong Kong, Tomorrow the World: What China's Crackdown Reveals About Its Plans to End Freedom Everywhere" (St. Martin's Press, 2022)

13 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this account of the rapid erosion of liberties, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and civil and political rights in Hong Kong, Mark L. Cliffo...

Geopolitics in the Mekong Region: The Role of Chinese Energy Politics in Laos and Cambodia

12 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Energy, and who controls it, has emerged as a major issue in Southeast Asia in recent years. Nowhere is this issue more evident than in the Mekong reg...

Covid-19 Nationalism in China and Lessons from the Pandemic

09 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How has digital nationalism manifested amid the Covid-19 pandemic in China? How does anti-American sentiment in China feed into the disinformation cam...

Guangtian Ha, "The Sound of Salvation: Voice, Gender, and the Sufi Mediascape in China" (Columbia UP, 2021)

09 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Jahriyya Sufis—a primarily Sinophone order of Naqshbandiyya Sufism in northwestern China—inhabit a unique religious soundscape. The hallmark o...

Mikkel Bunkenborg et al., "Collaborative Damage: An Experimental Ethnography of Chinese Globalization" (Cornell UP, 2022)

09 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Collaborative Damage: An Experimental Ethnography of Chinese Globalization (Cornell UP, 2022) is an experimental ethnography of Chinese globalization...

Louisa Lim, "Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong" (Riverhead Books, 2022)

06 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this timely book, award-winning journalist and longtime Hong Konger, Louisa Lim, weaves together Hong Kong's fraught political and social history ...

Katie Stallard, "Dancing on Bones: History and Power in China, Russia and North Korea" (Oxford UP, 2022)

06 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Present-day relations between ‘the West’ and each of China, Russia and North Korea are often fractious to say the least, yet today’s global atmo...

Mila Zuo, "Vulgar Beauty: Acting Chinese in the Global Sensorium" (Duke UP, 2022)

04 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Yi’s eyes soften as he watches Jiazhi sing a Chinese folk song with subtle, feminine movements in the film, Lust, Caution. The room fills with laug...

Ban Wang, "China in the World: Culture, Politics, and World Vision" (Duke UP, 2022)

03 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Ban Wang's book China in the World: Culture, Politics, and World Vision (Duke University Press, 2022), traces the evolution of modern China from th...

Peter Mattis and Matthew Brazil, "Chinese Communist Espionage: An Intelligence Primer" (Naval Institute Press, 2019)

29 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Chinese Communist Espionage: An Intelligence Primer (Naval Institute Press, 2019), authors Mathew Brazil and Peter Mattis present an unprecedent...

Joseph Fewsmith, "Forging Leninism in China: Mao and the Remaking of the Chinese Communist Party, 1927–1934" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

29 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Forging Leninism in China: Mao and the Remaking of the Chinese Communist Party, 1927–1934 (Cambridge University Press, 2022) is a re-examination of...

Robert Cliver, "Red Silk: Class, Gender, and Revolution in China's Yangzi Delta Silk Industry" (Harvard UP, 2020)

27 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Red Silk: Class, Gender, and Revolution in China's Yangzi Delta Silk Industry (Harvard UP, 2020) is a history of China's Yangzi Delta silk industry ...

Ping Zhu and Hui Faye Xiao, "Feminisms with Chinese Characteristics" (Syracuse UP, 2021)

26 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Feminisms with Chinese Characteristics (Syracuse University Press, 2021), co-edited by Ping Zhu and Hui Faye Xiao, offers an examination of the ways...

Ta-wei Chi, "The Membranes: A Novel" (Columbia UP, 2021)

26 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It is the late twenty-first century, and Momo is the most celebrated dermal care technician in all of T City. Humanity has migrated to domes at the bo...

Suzanne E. Scoggins, "Policing China: Street-Level Cops in the Shadow of Protest" (Cornell UP, 2021)

25 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

China has the reputation for being a strong security state. After the pro-democracy Tiananmen protests, the Chinese government moved to increase stabi...

Nicole Elizabeth Barnes, "Intimate Communities: Wartime Healthcare and the Birth of Modern China, 1937-1945" (U California Press, 2018)

21 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When China’s War of Resistance against Japan began in July 1937, it sparked an immediate health crisis throughout China. In the end, China not only ...

Terry Lautz, "Americans in China: Encounters with the People's Republic" (Oxford UP, 2022)

21 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Americans in China: Encounters with the People’s Republic (Oxford, 2022) tells the stories of men and women who have lived and worked in China from...

Szu-Wen Kung, "Translation of Contemporary Taiwan Literature in a Cross-Cultural Context" (Routledge, 2021)

19 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Translation of Contemporary Taiwan Literature in a Cross-Cultural Context (Routledge, 2021) explores the social, cultural, and linguistic implicatio...

Raffaello Pantucci and Alexandros Petersen, "Sinostan: China's Inadvertent Empire" (Oxford UP, 2022)

18 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

I am very pleased to host on the podcast Raffaello Pantucci, one of the authors of Sinostan: China's Inadvertent Empire [Oxford University Press 20...

Isabella M. Weber, "How China Escaped Shock Therapy: The Market Reform Debate" (Routledge, 2021)

15 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

China has become deeply integrated into the world economy. Yet, gradual marketization has facilitated the country's rise without leading to its wholes...

Karen Cheung, "The Impossible City: A Hong Kong Memoir" (Random House, 2022)

14 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Hong Kong is almost impossible to explain to those not from the city. Too often, the city has had to struggle with shorthand used by those writing abo...

Darren Byler, "Terror Capitalism: Uyghur Dispossession and Masculinity in a Chinese City" (Duke UP, 2022)

13 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The continuing crisis in Xinjiang has, thanks to the work of many scholars and reporters, led to greatly increased awareness of the region's hist...

Robert Barnett et al., "Conflicting Memories: Tibetan History Under Mao Retold : Essays and Primary Documents" (Brill, 2020)

13 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

After the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, history under him was retold: for example, the Cultural Revolution was rebranded as “Ten Years of Chaos” an...

Why Is Eileen Gu the New Poster Child in China?

08 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What is “binary nationalism” and what has it got to do with free-style skiing? The explosive popularity of Eileen Gu’s is an excellent case for ...

Pamela Kyle Crossley, "Hammer and Anvil: Nomad Rulers at the Forge of the Modern World" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2019)

06 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This groundbreaking book examines the role of rulers with nomadic roots in transforming the great societies of Eurasia, especially from the thirteenth...

Pamela Kyle Crossley, "Hammer and Anvil: Nomad Rulers at the Forge of the Modern World" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2019)

06 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This groundbreaking book examines the role of rulers with nomadic roots in transforming the great societies of Eurasia, especially from the thirteenth...

Yunxiang Gao, "Arise Africa, Roar China: Black and Chinese Citizens of the World in the Twentieth Century" (UNC Press, 2021)

05 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Arise Africa, Roar China: Black and Chinese Citizens of the World in the Twentieth Century (UNC Press, 2021) explores the close relationships between...

China, Buddhism and the Belt and Road Initiative in Mainland Southeast Asia

31 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Launched in 2013 by Chinese President XI Jinping, China’s Belt and Road initiative has manifested throughout Southeast Asia in the form of multibill...

Eiren L. Shea, "Mongol Court Dress, Identity Formation, and Global Exchange" (Routledge, 2020)

25 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Mongol period (1206-1368) marked a major turning point of exchange - culturally, politically, and artistically - across Eurasia. The wide-ranging ...

China’s International Relations and the Ukraine Crisis

25 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shaken the ground of global politics, and one of the key questions has been China’s position in the situation. In...

Jing Tsu, "Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution That Made China Modern" (Riverhead Books, 2022)

24 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Tens of thousands of characters. Countless homonyms. Mutually unintelligible dialects across an entire country. This is what faced the Chinese thinker...

Ken Chih-Yan Sun, "Time and Migration: How Long-Term Taiwanese Migrants Negotiate Later Life" (Cornell UP, 2021)

24 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Based on longitudinal ethnographic work on migration between the United States and Taiwan, Time and Migration: How Long-Term Taiwanese Migrants Negot...

Tao Jiang, "Origins of Moral-Political Philosophy in Early China: Contestation of Humaneness, Justice, and Personal Freedom" (Oxford UP, 2021)

24 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When we think of pre-Buddhism Chinese philosophy, ideas such as filial piety and “the Dao” might come to mind. But what was at stake in the philos...

Peter B. Lavelle, "The Profits of Nature: Colonial Development and the Quest for Resources in Nineteenth-Century China" (Columbia UP, 2020)

22 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In The Profits of Nature: Colonial Development and the Quest for Resources in Nineteenth-Century China (Columbia UP, 2020), Peter Lavelle offers a f...

Scott Rozelle and Natalie Hell, "Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise" (U Chicago Press, 2020)

15 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

As the glittering skyline in Shanghai seemingly attests, China has quickly transformed itself from a place of stark poverty into a modern, urban, tech...

Friederike Assandri, "The Daode jing Commentary of Cheng Xuanying: Daoism, Buddhism, and the Laozi in the Tang Dynasty" (Oxford UP, 2021)

14 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This book presents for the first time in English a complete translation of the Expository Commentary to the Daode jing, written by the Daoist monk ...

Franck Billé and Caroline Humphrey, "On the Edge: Life Along the Russia-China Border" (Harvard UP, 2021)

14 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The border between Russia and China winds for 2,600 miles through rivers, swamps, and vast taiga forests. It's a thin line of direct engagement, extra...

Silvia M. Lindtner, "Prototype Nation: China and the Contested Promise of Innovation" (Princeton UP, 2020)

10 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Prototype Nation: China and the Contested Promise of Innovation (Princeton University Press, 2020) reveals how a growing distrust in Western models o...

On the Resurgence of Taoism and Christianity in China

09 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, Ian Johnson is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and the New York Times; his work has also...

Edward Tyerman, "Internationalist Aesthetics: China and Early Soviet Culture" (Columbia UP, 2021)

08 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

I am joined for my interview with Edward Tyerman by Ed Pulford, another host on our channel. Together, we discuss Edward’s new book, Internationali...

Olivia Milburn, "The Empress in the Pepper Chamber: Zhao Feiyan in History and Fiction" (U Washington Press, 2021)

01 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Zhao Feiyan (45-1 BCE), the second empress appointed by Emperor Cheng of the Han dynasty (207 BCE-220 CE), was born in slavery and trained in the perf...

The Great Exodus from China: Trauma, Memory, and Identity in Modern Taiwan

28 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang is Associate Professor of East Asian History, Department of History, University of Missouri-Columbia, USA . His book “The G...

Aminta Arrington, "Songs of the Lisu Hills: Practicing Christianity in Southwest China" (PSU Press, 2020)

28 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The story of how the Lisu of southwest China were evangelized one hundred years ago by the China Inland Mission is a familiar one in mission circles. ...

Alexa Alice Joubin, "Shakespeare & East Asia" (Oxford UP, 2021)

23 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Shakespeare’s plays enjoy a great deal of popularity across the world, yet most of us study Shakespeare's local productions and scholarship. Shakes...

Yunxiang Gao, "Arise Africa, Roar China: Black and Chinese Citizens of the World in the Twentieth Century" (UNC Press, 2021)

22 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Arise Africa, Roar China: Black and Chinese Citizens of the World in the Twentieth Century (University of North Carolina Press, 2021) explores the c...

Understanding Authoritarianism: Deepening Autocratization, Dynamic Dictatorships, and China

21 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Authoritarian regimes have often been discussed in contrast to democratic governments and defined in terms of what they lack--namely, democratic featu...

Peggy Wang, "The Future History of Contemporary Chinese Art" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)

14 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking to Peggy Wang about her new book, The Future History of Contemporary Chinese Art (Minnesota Universi...

Jun Liu, "Shifting Dynamics of Contention in the Digital Age: Mobile Communication and Politics in China" (Oxford UP, 2020)

11 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How has digital communication technologies impacted the dynamics of political contention in China? What is the role of mobile technology in the countr...

Paul French, "Bloody Saturday: Shanghai's Darkest Day" (Penguin, 2018)

10 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Thirties and Forties were some of the first instances of aerial bombardment of civilian populations—and an indication of their destructive power...

Leilei Chen, "Re-Orienting China: Travel Writing and Cross-Cultural Understanding" (U Regina Press, 2016)

09 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Re-Orienting China: Travel Writing and Cross-Cultural Understanding (U Regina Press, 2016) challenges the notion of the travel writer as imperialisti...

Liz P. Y. Chee, "Mao's Bestiary: Medicinal Animals and Modern China" (Duke UP, 2021)

09 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Controversy over the medicinal uses of wild animals in China has erupted around the ethics and efficacy of animal-based drugs, the devastating effect ...

Peilin Liang, "Bodies and Transformance in Taiwanese Contemporary Theater" (Routledge, 2021)

07 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Proposing the concept of transformance, a conscious and rigorous process of self-cultivation toward a reconceptualized body, Liang shows how theater p...

Colin Thubron, "The Amur River: Between Russia and China" (Harper, 2021)

03 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It’s a great pleasure to welcome Colin Thubron to the Asian Review of Books podcast. Travel writer and novelist, Colin has written countless books...

Alexander Dukalskis, "Making the World Safe for Dictatorship" (Oxford UP, 2021)

02 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Making the World Safe for Dictatorship (Oxford University Press, 2021) Dr. Alexander Dukalskis looks at the tactics that authoritarian states use...

Joseph W. Ho, "Developing Mission: Photography, Filmmaking, and American Missionaries in Modern China" (Cornell UP, 2022)

02 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Joseph W. Ho’s book Developing Mission: Photography, Filmmaking, and American Missionaries in Modern China (Cornell University Press, 2021) offers...

Neil J. Diamant, "Useful Bullshit: Constitutions in Chinese Politics and Society" (Cornell UP, 2022)

31 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Useful Bullshit: Consitutions in Chinese Politics and Society (Cornell University Press, 2022) Dr. Neil Diamant pulls back the curtain on early c...

Yajun Mo, "Touring China: A History of Travel Culture, 1912-1949" (Cornell UP, 2021)

31 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Touring China: A History of Travel Culture, 1912-1949 (Cornell UP, 2021), Yajun Mo explores how early twentieth century Chinese sightseers descri...

Catherine S. Chan, "Macanese Diaspora in British Hong: A Century of Transimperial Drifting" (Amsterdam UP, 2021)

27 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Hong Kong’s Ice House Street, in the heart of the city’s Financial District, is Club Lusitano: one of the city’s premier social clubs, nestle...

Howard Chiang, "Queer Taiwanese Literature: A Reader" (Cambria Press, 2021)

24 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

As the first state to legalize same-sex marriage in Asia and host the first annual gay pride in the Sinophone Pacific, Taiwan is a historic center of ...

Heidi Wang-Kaeding, "China's Environmental Foreign Relations" (Routledge, 2021)

21 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Environmental protection and climate actions has embedded in China’s foreign policy and the Chinese government has recently pledged to make the Belt...

Franck Billé and Caroline Humphrey, "On the Edge: Life Along the Russia-China Border" (Harvard UP, 2021)

20 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The border between Russia and China is one of the world’s longest, spanning thousands of miles. It’s one of the few extended land borders between ...

Erin M. Cline, "The Analects: A Guide" (Oxford UP, 2021)

20 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Probably the most well-known Chinese philosopher around the world is Kongzi, typically called by his Latinized name, “Confucius.” And yet he did n...

Ziying You, "Folk Literati, Contested Tradition, and Heritage in Contemporary China: Incense Is Kept Burning" (Indiana UP, 2020)

18 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Folk Literati, Contested Tradition, and Heritage in Contemporary China: Incense Is Kept Burning (Indiana UP, 2020), Ziying You explores the role ...

Ruth Mostern, "The Yellow River: A Natural and Unnatural History" (Yale UP, 2021)

14 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A three-thousand-year history of the Yellow River and the legacy of interactions between humans and the natural landscape From Neolithic times to the ...

Sumantra Bose, "Kashmir at the Crossroads: Inside a 21st-Century Conflict" (Yale UP, 2021)

13 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

“Kashmir” carries the burden of being known as one of the world’s biggest flashpoints. If a novel, TV show, or video game wants an easy internat...

Export China: Reimagining Chineseness through the Ceramics Trade in Southeast Asia

07 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2021, a team of divers led by renowned maritime archaeologist Dr Michael Flecker and sponsored by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute surveyed two hist...

Cheng Li, "Middle Class Shanghai: Reshaping U.S.-China Engagement" (Brookings Institution Press, 2021)

06 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In mid-November, Washington and Beijing mutually agreed to start granting journalist visas again, putting an end to months of reciprocal visa reject...

East Asian Cold War History with a Maritime Twist

27 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When did the Cold War in East Asia really begin? According to ADI-NIAS researcher Kuan-Jen Chen, the answer is 1945 – if we view the Cold War throug...

Shelly Chan, "Diaspora’s Homeland: Modern China in the Age of Global Migration" (Duke UP, 2018)

24 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Diaspora’s Homeland: Modern China in the Age of Global Migration (Duke University Press, 2018) by Shelly Chan provides a broad historical study of ...

Megan Stewart, "Governing for Revolution: Statebuilding in Civil War" (Cambridge UP, 2021)

22 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In Governing for Revolution: Social Transformation in Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2021) Dr. Megan Stewart argues that despite significant...

Yeling Tan, "Disaggregating China, Inc.: State Strategies in the Liberal Economic Order" (Cornell UP, 2021)

21 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Once you understand that markets require public institutions of governance and regulation in order to function well, and further, you accept that nati...

Hua Li, "Chinese Science Fiction During the Post-Mao Cultural Thaw" (U Toronto Press, 2021)

21 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The late 1970s to the mid-1980s, a period commonly referred to as the post-Mao cultural thaw, was a key transitional phase in the evolution of Chinese...

Aurelia Campbell, "What the Emperor Built: Architecture and Empire in the Early Ming" (U Washington Press, 2020)

20 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

One of the most famous rulers in Chinese history, the Yongle emperor (r. 1402–24) gained renown for constructing Beijing’s magnificent Forbidden C...

Stephen Vines, "Defying the Dragon: Hong Kong and the World’s Largest Dictatorship" (Hurst, 2021)

20 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

What sequence of events led Hong Kong to lose its long-held status as a liberal enclave of China? What drove its population to rise up against its gov...

Chun-Yi Peng, "Mediatized Taiwanese Mandarin: Popular Culture, Masculinity, and Social Perceptions" (Springer, 2021)

15 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Mediatized Taiwanese Mandarin: Popular Culture, Masculinity, and Social Perceptions (Springer, 2021) explores how language ideologies have emerged fo...

The #MeToo Movement in China and the Case of Tennis Star Peng Shuai

10 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Several high-profile cases of sexual harassment and assault have helped the #MeToo movement in China continue to make impacts on a society that is hig...

Amish Raj Mulmi, "All Roads Lead North: China, Nepal and the Contest for the Himalayas" (Context, 2021)

09 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On the sidelines of COP26, Nepali Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba met his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi as part of an effort to find a way to r...

Karl Gerth, “China: Up Close and Personal” (Open Agenda, 2021)

09 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

China: Up Close and Personal is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Karl Gerth, Hwei-Chih and Julia Hsiu Chair in Chine...

Negotiated Environmentalism: Influences of Domestic Interest Groups in China’s Environmental Foreign Relations

06 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

COP26 was billed as the make or break event in the fight against climate change. In conversation with Quynh Le Vo, Sharon Seah, coordinator of the ISE...

Shaoling Ma, "The Stone and the Wireless: Mediating China, 1861–1906" (Duke UP, 2021)

06 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, I interview Shaoling Ma, professor of Humanities (Literature) at Yale-NUS about her new book, The Stone and the Wireless: Mediating ...

Margherita Zanasi, "Economic Thought in Modern China: Market and Consumption, c.1500–1937" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

03 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In Economic Thought in Modern China: Market and Consumption, c.1500–1937 (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Margherita Zanasi argues that basic...

Rethinking China's Humanitarian Diplomacy before and during Covid-19

03 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

As the Covid-19 pandemic spread to Europe and other parts of the globe in spring of 2020, the Chinese government started reporting donations of Person...

Shao-yun Yang, "The Way of the Barbarians: Redrawing Ethnic Boundaries in Tang and Song China" (U Washington Press, 2019)

30 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Shao-yun Yang's The Way of the Barbarians: Redrawing Ethnic Boundaries in Tang and Song China (University of Washington Press, 2019) challenges as...

Sunhee Koo, "Sound of the Border: Music and Identity of Korean Minority Nationality in China" (U Hawaii Press, 2021)

24 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When faced with some of the complex identity questions which often arise in borderlands, Koreans in China – known as Chosonjok in Korean, Chaoxianzu...

Melissa Macauley, "Distant Shores: Colonial Encounters on China's Maritime Frontier" (Princeton UP, 2021)

24 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

“The Europeans raise all the cattle, but the Chinese get all the milk.” This joke, told in colonial Singapore, was indicative of the importance of...