Yesterday
Xiaofan Amy Li, "The Aesthetics of Risk in Franco-East Asian Literatures" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
The Aesthetics of Risk in Franco-East Asian Literatures (Cambridge UP, 2026) is the first book that examines the concept of risk in non-anglophone world literature. Focusing on how risk is produced and reshaped by literary aesthetics, Li argues that risk is a creative rather than ... Show More
50m 56s
Aug 13
Paul French, "The Last Emperor of China: Twilight of the Forbidden City" (St. Martin's Press, 2026)
The life of Puyi, the last emperor of China, often feels like a spectacle—in no small part due to the 1987 Oscar-winning film The Last Emperor. Yet the true story being Puyi, as well as his wife, the empress Wanrong, is more complicated. Two foreigners were asked to tutor both Pu ... Show More
52m 38s
Aug 12
Sima Qian–China’s Grand Historian
John Ross chats with repeat guest Tim McGirk about Sima Qian (c. 145–86 BC), the Father of Chinese History. He earned this accolade for his monumental work, the Shiji (usually translated as Records of the Grand Historian). It covers more than two thousand years, from the legendar ... Show More
32m 13s
May 2024
Ian Johnson, "Sparks: China's Underground Historians and Their Battle for the Future" (Oxford UP, 2023)
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 – hold particular weight in China. This is not a new phenomenon, for which pasts to elevate and which to suppress has long been a concern ... Show More
1h 6m
Jun 2025
[BEST OF] The History of Modern China
From the Taiping and Boxer Rebellions, to the Chinese Revolution and Civil War, through the Long March and the rise of Mao Zedong, to the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, all the way to Deng's Reform and China today, Professor of East Asian and Global History Dr. Ken H ... Show More
7 h
Jun 2025
[BEST OF] The Chinese Revolution: Chairman Mao, Cultural Revolution, & Communist China
ORIGINALLY RELEASED Jun 4, 2018 In this episode, Breht is joined by Yueran Zhang, a PhD candidate in Sociology at Harvard University, to discuss the Chinese Revolution and the legacy of Mao Zedong. Together, they explore the historical context of China's revolutionary transformat ... Show More
1h 2m
Apr 2024
Xiaofei Kang, "Enchanted Revolution: Ghosts, Shamans, and Gender Politics in Chinese Communist Propaganda, 1942-1953" (Oxford UP, 2023)
China’s communist revolution has an intricate relationship with gender and religion. In Enchanted Revolution: Ghosts, Shamans, and Gender Politics in Chinese Communist Propaganda, 1942-1953 (Oxford UP, 2023), Xiaofei Kang moves the two themes to the center stage in the Chinese Re ... Show More
1h 24m
Dec 2020
Kelly A. Hammond, "China's Muslims and Japan's Empire: Centering Islam in World War II" (UNC Press, 2020)
The 1930s-40s expansion of the Japanese empire was marked by significant interest among Japan-based scholars and policy-makers in China’s Muslim population and how best to write them into a new pan-Asian story. At the very same time, as Kelly Hammond shows in China's Muslims and ... Show More
59m 34s
Aug 2021
China’s Wolf Warrior Diplomacy with Peter Martin
In this episode of the China in the World podcast, Paul Haenle speaks with Peter Martin about his new book, “China's Civilian Army: The Making of Wolf Warrior Diplomacy.” Peter Martin’s book charts the history of Chinese diplomacy, from the rise of the Communist Party during the ... Show More
43m 22s
Apr 2024
Philipp Demgenski, "Seeking a Future for the Past: Space, Power, and Heritage in a Chinese City" (U Michigan Press, 2024)
In Seeking a Future for the Past: Space, Power, and Heritage in a Chinese City (U Michigan Press, 2024), Philipp Demgenski examines the complexities and changing sociopolitical dynamics of urban renewal in contemporary China. Drawing on ten years of ethnographic fieldwork in the ... Show More
1h 20m
Jun 2023
A Few Thousand Years of Chinese Foreign Policy (In a Nutshell)
In his latest article, "A Few Thousand Years of Chinese Foreign Policy (In a Nutshell)," Joe unravels China's diplomatic legacy from its cultural origins to the rise of the Chinese Communist Party, debunking popular misconceptions and delivering a rich historical context to under ... Show More
1h 19m
With China’s northwestern and southern edges justifiably being sources of global attention at present, Martin Fromm’s Borderland Memories: Searching for Historical Identity in Post-Mao China (Cambridge University Press, 2019) has much light to shed on how the country’s ruling Communist Party refashioned its relationship with its frontiers at an earlier point ... Show More
<p>Mia Wong is joined by Robert Evans to discuss Zhang Zongchang.</p> <p>FOOTNOTES:</p> <p>China in Disintegration: The Republican Era in Chinese History, 1912—1949 by James E. Sheridan</p> <p><a href="https://1lib.us/book/6061335/d193d2">https://1lib.us/book/6061335/d193d2</a></ ... Show More
