In the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, a Chinese secret organization called the Society of the Righteous and Harmonious Fists led an uprising in northern China against the spread of Western and Japanese influence there. The rebels, referred to by Westerners as Boxers because they performed physical exercises they believed would make them able to withstand bullets, ... Show More
Mar 6
The First Dumb Robbery in American History
The man credited with the first big bank robbery in America was, frankly, bad at crime. Isaac Davis made off with $162,821 - or $3 million, in today's money - from the vault of the Bank of Pennsylvania sometime in the middle of the night on August 31st, 1798. This is the story of ... Show More
19m 33s
Jun 2023
China's Under Martial Law
It’s the penultimate episode, and Billy’s taken us back to China to talk about the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, and the massacre that followed. In classic To this day, discussion of the events are strictly censored in China but in this episode we’ll explore it all. What happen ... Show More
1h 1m
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
Aug 2024
Summer School 6: China, Taiwan and how nations grow rich
Episodes each Wednesday through labor day. Find all the episodes from this season here. And past seasons here. And follow along on TikTok here for video Summer School. In the middle of the twentieth century, China and its neighbors in East Asia were poor, mostly rural economies. ... Show More
36m 24s
May 2025
The Taiping Rebellion: everything you wanted to know
It's considered to be the bloodiest civil war in history, but there's a fair chance you've never heard of it. The Taiping Rebellion convulsed China from 1850 to 1864, leading to over 20 million deaths and severely weakening the Qing dynasty, but it remains little known outside of ... Show More
56m 4s
Jan 2020
China in the Middle East: Part One
In the first episode of our new podcast miniseries, China in the Middle East, Jon Alterman gives an overview of Chinese policy in the Middle East and how the Middle East fits into China’s worldview. Jon also sits down with Doug Paal, Dean Cheng, Sulmaan Khan, and Evan Medeiros fo ... Show More
21m 38s
Dec 2018
Daniel Kurtz-Phelan on George Marshall’s China Mission
Daniel Kurtz-Phelan, the executive editor of Foreign Affairs, is the author of the recent book The China Mission: George Marshall's Unfinished War, 1945–1947. George Marshall, World War II hero and creator of the Marshall Plan, spent 1945-47 drinking baijiu with Mao and playing c ... Show More
55m 44s