New Books in Chinese Studies
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network, an academic audio library dedicated to public education. Each episode features scholars discussing their recently published research with another expert in their field. The podcast covers a wide range of topics within Chinese studies. Listeners can explore over 150 channels and browse thousands of episodes on the New Books Network website.
Episodes
Xian Aubin Wang, "Islam and Maoism in Southern Yunnan: State Violence and Resistance, 1949–2024" (Cornell UP, 2026)
Islam and Maoism in Southern Yunnan: State Violence and Resistance, 1949–2024
(Cornell University Press, 2026) by Dr. Xian Aubin Wang investigates
decades of contentious relations between the Communist party-state of
China and the Muslim community of southern Yunnan centered on the
village of Shadian, site of an incident of state violence in 1975 that
resulted in 1600 civilian deaths. Examini
Chinese EVs: From Nordic Streets to Central Asian Hubs
Can Europe afford to stand back as China rewrites the global electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem? In this episode, Julie Yu-Wen Chen at the University of Helsinki talks to United Nations Senior Adviser Matthew Gray for Europe and Central Asia Markets, who discusses the rapid international expansion of Chinese EVs. The conversation highlights how Chinese brands have moved beyond public buses to growing
Fabio Lanza, "Urban Revolution: People's Communes in Beijing" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
During the Great Leap Forward (1958-62), the collectivization of the Chinese countryside had catastrophic results, but how did this short-lived political experiment reshape urban life? In his new book, Urban Revolution: People's Communes in Beijing (Cambridge UP, 2026), Fabio Lanza examines the most radical attempts to remake cities under Mao. This first full-length history in English of China's u
Xiaobing Li, "China’s Mahan: Admiral Liu Huaqing and the Rise of the Modern Chinese Navy (Naval Institute Press, 2026)
In 2012, China debuted its first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, a refurbished Soviet-era ship from Ukraine. The debut of the Liaoning was largely thanks to a longtime pressure campaign by Liu Huaqing, the onetime leader of the People’s Liberation Army Navy and the man responsible for transforming China’s naval strategy. (China now has three carriers, and is building a fourth).
When Liu began his
Charlotte Brooks, "The Moys of New York and Shanghai: One Family’s Extraordinary Journey Through War and Revolution" (U California Press, 2026)
The story of the Moy family—U.S.-born Chinese-American siblings who grow up in the first half of the 20th century—is one that spans the Pacific, covering New York, Chicago, and cosmopolitan Shanghai. It’s a story that spans the Great Depression, the Second World War, the Chinese Civil War, and the early Cold War—and stars one sibling who was an early participant in the Kuomintang…and another who r
Yoshiko Nakano and Georgina Challen, "Meiji Graves in Happy Valley: Stories of Early Japanese Residents in Hong Kong" (Hong Kong UP, 2024)
The connections between Hong Kong and Japan began far earlier than many realise. Yet only recently has Hong Kong’s historic Japanese community received the attention it deserves through Meiji Graves in Happy Valley: Stories of Early Japanese Residents in Hong Kong (Hong Kong UP, 2024). In this compelling book, Dr Yoshiko Nakano and Georgina Challen guide readers into the Meiji era, reconstructing
Colin Flahive, "The Galaxy's Last Ride: Shifting Gears in Rural China" (Earnshaw Books, 2026)
Colin Flahive
is an American entrepreneur and writer who has spent more than two
decades living and running social enterprises in southwestern China. He
is best known as one of the founders of Salvador's Coffee House, which
is a hub of international exchange in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan
province.
In this New Books Network episode, we talk with Colin about his latest book, The Galaxy's
Michael Dillon, "Shanghai: The Story of China's Most Dynamic City" (Yale UP, 2026)
Home to 25 million people, Shanghai is the most populous and wealthiest city
in China. A meeting point between China and the wider world, the city
has become the beating heart of Chinese capitalism, a place of
initiative, confidence, and forward thinking. It is a city of stark
contradictions, suffused with both extreme wealth and poverty, luxury
living, and a highly organised criminal underwo
Eileen Otis, "Walmart: Made in China" (Stanford UP, 2026)
Walmart: Made in China
(Stanford University Press, 2026) by Dr. Eileen Otis tells the story of
Walmart's expansion in China, making the case that it is the story of a
major shift in the structure of global capitalism. Walmart, argues Dr.
Otis, is a leading actor in the rise of merchant capitalism, wherein the
role of the merchant has changed from operating at the whim of industrialists, to le
Lewis Ryder, "Connoisseurs and conmen: The contest for cultural authority in early twentieth-century Britain" (Manchester UP, 2026)
Connoisseurs and conmen: The contest for cultural authority in early twentieth-century Britain
(Manchester University Press, 2026) by Dr. Lewis Ryder examines John
Hilditch (1872-1930), a notorious collector of Chinese art who lied,
hoaxed and manipulated in his struggle against museum experts to become a
cultural authority. Previously overlooked as a pest with a dubious
collection, this bo
Weipin Tsai, "The Making of China's Post Office: Sovereignty, Modernization, and the Connection of a Nation" (Harvard UP, 2024)
How did a vast, nationwide institution like a modern postal system
come into being in Qing China—right at the very end of the empire?
In The Making of China’s Post Office: Sovereignty, Modernization, and the Connection of a Nation (Harvard University Press, 2024), Weipin Tsai
takes up this question by tracing the origins and early development of
China’s postal system. The book asks not only
Charlie Qiuli Xue and Arwen Yingting Chen, "American-Designed Shopping Malls in China" (Hong Kong UP, 2026)
China’s remarkable journey from poverty to becoming the world’s second-largest economic power is marked by extraordinary urban growth and consumption capacity of its urban population. Central to this development fervor are multifunctional commercial complexes and shopping malls, now key features of modern urban districts. The concept of shopping malls, originally introduced to China by American ar
Chunmei Du, "Everyday Occupation: American Soldiers and Chinese Civilians in the Aftermath of World War II" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
Chunmei Du is an Associate Professor of History at Lingnan
University. Her work focuses on the social and cultural history of
modern China, specifically looking at cross-cultural encounters and the lived experiences of ordinary individuals during periods of profound political transition.
In this New Books Network episode, we chat with Du about her latest book, Everyday Occupation: American Sol
Mengqi Wang, "Anxious Homes: Inflexible Demand and China's Housing Market" (Cornell UP, 2026)
Anxious Homes: Inflexible Demand and China's Housing Market (Cornell UP, 2026) is a study of the power that shapes the forms of the homes Chinese citizens strive for and the possible paths they may take to realize their home ownership dreams. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, Mengqi Wang discusses how the Chinese real estate industry functions in the everyday, welding aspirational middle-
Evan N. Dawley, "Taiwan: A People′s History" (Reaktion Books, 2026)
While most English-language histories of Taiwan focus on its geopolitical role, Taiwan: A People’s History (Reaktion, 2026) by Dr. Evan N. Dawley centres on the people of Taiwan themselves and explores how they have formed a unique polity, telling the story of the Indigenous Taiwanese, the Hoklo and Hakka who came from China before the twentieth century, Japanese colonialism and the Chinese who ar
Gregg A. Brazinsky, "Cold War Comrades: An Emotional History of the Sino-North Korean Alliance" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
In this major new interpretation of Sino-North Korean relations, Dr. Gregg A. Brazinsky argues that neither the PRC nor the DPRK would have survived as socialist states without the ideal of Sino-North Korean friendship. Chinese and North Korean leaders encouraged mutual empathy and sentimental attachments between their citizens and then used these emotions to strengthen popular commitment to socia
Charles L. Glaser, "Retrench, Defend, Compete: Securing America's Future Against a Rising China" (Cornell UP, 2025)
In Retrench, Defend, Compete: Securing America's Future Against a Rising China (Cornell UP, 2025), Charles L. Glaser advances a thought-provoking strategy for securing vital US interests in the face of China's rise.
Many believe China's ascent will drive it to war with the United States. Yet this is far from inevitable; geography and nuclear weapons should ensure US security. The real danger, Gla
J. Michael Cole, "The Taiwan Tinderbox: The Island-Nation at the Centre of the New Cold War" (Polity, 2025)
J. Michael Cole is a Taipei-based security analyst and writer who has spent over two decades documenting Taiwan’s political and security landscape. A former analyst with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), he is a Research Fellow and Executive Editor with the Prospect Foundation in Taiwan, and advises various private and governmental actors. He is also a Senior Non-Resident Fellow w
Through the Lens of Taiwan: Film, History, and Identity
This podcast episode is hosted by Mart Tšernjuk, the Taiwan Coordinator at the University of Tartu Asia who is talking to Prof. Robert Chen, a leading scholar of Taiwanese cinema, discussing the relationship between film, history, and identity in Taiwan.
Drawing on Chen’s teaching experience at the University of Tartu, he highlights how Estonian students engage deeply with Taiwanese films, partic
Ker Gibbs, "The Fragile Dragon: Trade, Trump, and China's Vulnerabilities" (Earnshaw Books, 2026)
The Fragile Dragon offers a unique exploration of China's rapid transformation and its evolving commercial relationship with the West. Drawing on the author's experience as president of the American Chamber of Commerce under Presidents Obama, Trump, and Biden, the book examines key business and political developments from both Western and Chinese perspectives. The narrative intertwines the story o
Mujun Zhou, "The Death and Life of Chinese Civil Society" (U Michigan Press, 2026)
In a society undergoing rapid transformation, how do people engage in debates around a foreign concept and in doing so, pursue contested political futures?
The Death and Life of Chinese Civil Society examines how a group of Chinese intellectual elites referred to as the liberals or ziyou pai edified the civil society project beginning in the 1990s to build an independent space to constrain state
Qi Ai, "Feng Xiaogang's New Year Films: Industry, Regulation, Humour and Authorship" (Routledge, 2025)
Feng Xiaogang's New Year Films: Industry, Regulation, Humour and Authorship (Routledge, 2025) offers not only an in-depth study of Feng Xiaogang as a cinematic auteur but also a comprehensive and informative discussion of the industrial transformation of mainstream Chinese cinema under party-state regulation from the 1990s to the 2010s.
Ai Qi is a lecturer at the School of Journalism and Communic
The Shawshank Redemption in China: An Interview with Matti Lehtonen
How can an entirely foreign cast perform the American “The Shawshank Redemption” in the Chinese language across China? In this episode of the Nordic Asia podcast, Julie Yu-Wen Chen talks with Matti E. Lehtonen, a Finnish national who shares his journey from a decades-long career in engineering and business to a starring role in the first Chinese-language stage production of The Shawshank Redemptio
Daniel A. Bell, "Why Ancient Chinese Political Thought Matters: Four Dialogues on China’s Past, Present, and Future" (Princeton UP, 2026)
Daniel A. Bell joins the podcast to discuss his new book, Why Ancient Chinese Political Thought Matters: Four Dialogues on China’s Past, Present, and Future (Princeton UP, 2026). This isn't your standard, dusty history — it’s a series of modernized dialogues that grew out of Bell’s own classroom at the University of Hong Kong. In this episode, Daniel tells us about the time he spent as an academi
Donald Sassoon, "Revolutions: A New History" (Verso Books, 2025)
Revolutions: A New History (Verso Books, 2025) is a sparkling account of political upheaval and the power of history. We think of revolutions in terms of fleeting events, such as the fall of the Bastille or the storming of the Winter Palace. In reality, they take decades to burn out, if they ever do.Historian Donald Sassoon takes the long view of some of the most famous upheavals: the English Civi
Unfrozen: The Fight for the Future of the Arctic with Mia Bennett
Nowhere is the dual threat of climate change and geopolitical contest felt more strongly than in the Arctic. Sea ice is declining rapidly, wildfires are burning, and permafrost is thawing. All the while, global interest is gathering apace as the region transforms from being a frozen desert into an international waterway. In this episode, Mia Bennett—co-author with Kalus Dodds of Unfrozen: The Figh
Ruth Mandujano López, "Steamships Across the Pacific: Maritime Journeys between Mexico, China, and Japan, 1867–1914" (U Hong Kong Press, 2025)
How did the movement of people, goods, and ships reshape connections between Latin America and Asia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries?
In Steamships Across the Pacific: Maritime Journeys between Mexico, China, and Japan, 1867–1914 (U Hong Kong Press, 2025), Ruth Mandujano López examines this question through the lens of maritime travel. Focusing on Mexico’s participation in eme
Ho-fung Hung, "The China Question: Eight Centuries of Fantasy and Fear" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
"The contempt and naive idealization of China are two sides of the same coin. The latter cannot be an antidote to the former."
So argues Ho-Fung Hung in the conclusion of The China Question: Eight Centuries of Fantasy and Fear (Cambridge University Press, 2026). For centuries, Western scholars portrayed China either as a land of superior morality, economy, and governance or as a formidable countr
Avner Greif et al., "Two Paths to Prosperity: Culture and Institutions in Europe and China, 1000–2000" (Princeton UP, 2025)
It’s one of the biggest questions in economic history: How did a richer, more advanced China fall behind Europe? Why was Europe the home of the Industrial Revolution, and not China? And what does that journey tell us about politics and culture?
In Two Paths to Prosperity: Culture and Institutions in Europe and China, 1000–2000 (Princeton UP, 2025), Guido Tabellini, alongside his co-authors, argu
Jeffrey Wasserstrom, "Everything You Wanted to Know about China*: * But Were Afraid to Ask" (Brixton Ink, 2025)
What does Xi Jinping share with Mao Zedong? Why is Confucius still central to a communist state? What really happened in Tiananmen Square—and why is it still a taboo?In this accessible and politically astute primer Everything You Wanted to Know about China*: * But Were Afraid to Ask (Bui Jones Books, 2026) acclaimed historian Jeffrey Wasserstrom tackles the questions many are afraid to ask abou
Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese Food
For many Ashkenazi Jews in the United States, Christmastime sparks memories of egg rolls and General Tso's chicken. How did the affinity for Chinese food amongst many Jews begin? Trace this delicious history from the turn-of-the-century Lower East Side to today’s take-out lo mein with Andrew Coe, author of Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States.
This lecture originally
Zheng Liu, "Cultural Mavericks: The Business and Politics of Independent Bookselling in China" (Columbia UP, 2026)
In recent decades, self-proclaimed “independent bookstores” have arisen across China. In the West, such retailers represent an alternative to corporations and chains. In China, by contrast, they differentiate themselves from not only the state-owned Xinhua Bookstore but also other privately owned shops through an emphasis on intellectual independence and the free exchange of ideas.
Cultural Maver
Nellie Chu, "Precarious Accumulation: Fast Fashion Bosses in Transnational Guangzhou" (Duke UP, 2026)
In Precarious Accumulation: Fast Fashion Bosses in Transnational Guangzhou (Duke UP, 2026), the cultural anthropologist Nellie Chu tells the story of the migrant entrepreneurs at the heart of Guangzhou’s fast fashion industry—one of the world’s most dynamic hubs of transnational commodity production. Chu shows how rural Chinese migrants, West African traders, and South Korean jobbers navigate the
James Lin, "The Global Vanguard: Agrarian Development and the Making of Modern Taiwan" (U California Press, 2025)
What does it mean for a small state to imagine itself as a model for the developing world? And how were these visions of agrarian development received on the ground?
In The Global Vanguard: Agrarian Development and the Making of Modern Taiwan (U California Press, 2025), James Lin examines these questions through the example of Taiwan. In the first half of the twentieth century, Taiwan transformed
Gods and the State: Environmental Change in the Blang Mountains, China
What happens to the environment when the state enters previously self-governed villages in rural China? We explore this question in the Blang mountains in southwestern China, a region that was incorporated into the nascent people’s republic of China from 1953 onwards, with immense consequences for Blang communities and ecologies. Our guest Daniel Mohseni Kabir Bäckström disentangles how the arriva
Christopher Munn, "Penalties of Empire: Capital Trials in Colonial Hong Kong" (Hong Kong UP, 2025)
Who bore the burdens of empire?
Christopher Munn's Penalties of Empire: Capital Trials in Colonial Hong Kong (Hong Kong UP, 2025) explores how judges, juries, and lawyers strove to deliver justice during the 150 years when the death penalty was in force in Hong Kong. Nine main chapters focus on key capital trials in the first century of British rule. Among the cases are piracies, assassinations
Cheng Li, "Contested Environmentalisms: Trees and the Making of Modern China" (Stanford UP, 2025)
For decades, tree planting and forestry have been pivotal to Chinese environmentalism. During the Mao era, while forests were razed to fuel rapid increases in industrial production, the “Greening the Motherland” campaign promoted conservationist tree-planting nationwide. Contested Environmentalisms: Trees and the Making of Modern China (Stanford UP, 2025) explores the seemingly contradictory rhet
Guoqi Xu, "The Idea of China: A Contested History" (Harvard UP, 2026)
What counts as China, and who counts as Chinese?
China became a capitalist superpower by investing in globalization. Now that it has established its credentials—and emerged as a major US competitor—its leaders are looking within, focused on suppressing dissent and fostering cohesion. The result has been an increasingly nationalist cultural agenda, celebrating a Chinese identity steeped in the mys
Rian Thum, "Islamic China: An Asian History" (Harvard UP, 2025)
Can someone be Chinese and Muslim? For some academics, this has been a surprisingly fraught question, with some asserting that Chinese Muslims are not really Chinese, or not really Muslim.
Rian Thum, in his book Islamic China: An Asian History (Harvard UP, 2025), strives to make Chinese Muslims “ordinary”, placing them in both Chinese and global history by following pilgrims, merchants, and other
Christine Loh, "Underground Front: The Chinese Communist Party in Hong Kong" (Hong Kong UP, 2018)
There can be little doubt that Hong Kong has stood out as a particularly intense East Asian news hotspot in recent years. Whether reports have focused on pro-democracy protests, abducted booksellers or PRC Mainland integration plans, most of this news has revolved around a common theme - namely questions over Beijing's ruling Chinese Communist Party and its influence in Hong Kong.
On this backgrou
Ray Yep, "Man in a Hurry: Murray MacLehose and Colonial Autonomy in Hong Kong" (Hong Kong UP, 2024)
In Man in a Hurry: Murray MacLehose and Colonial Autonomy in Hong Kong (Hong Kong UP, 2024), Ray Yep explores the latest available archival materials and re-examines MacLehose’s pivotal governorship in Hong Kong (1971–1982). MacLehose arrived in the challenging 1970s, when there were expectations for social reforms, uneasiness in the relationship between Hong Kong and London, and the 1997 factor
Bin Chen, "Hui Muslims in the Shaping of Modern China: Education, Frontier Politics, and Nation-State" (Routledge, 2025)
Chen examines the Chinese Nationalist government's distinctive support for private Muslim teachers schools between the 1920s and 1940s, and explores the complex relationship between these institutions and the Chinese state during the Republican period.
In 1933, the government issued the Teachers Schools Regulations, mandating that all teachers schools be state-run. However, the Nationalists viewe
Ruixue Jia et al., "The Highest Exam: How the Gaokao Shapes China" (Harvard UP, 2025)
The Highest Exam: How the Gaokao Shapes China (Harvard UP, 2025), provides a detailed, research-driven survey of the gaokao, China's high-stakes college entrance exam. Authors Ruixue Jia and Hongbin Li--past test-takers themselves--show how the exam system shapes schooling, serves state interests, inspires individualistic attitudes, and has lately become a touchstone in US education debates.
Ru
Competing Visions for International Order
Are we living in an era of competing international orders? A new book, entitled Competing Visions for International Order: Challenges for a Shared Direction in an Age of Global Contestation (Routledge, 2025) edited by Ville Sinkkonen, Veera Laine, Matti Puranen addresses the ultimate question.
In this episode of the Nordic Asia Podcast, Prof. Julie Yu-Wen Chen from the University of Helsinki talk
Yi-Ling Liu, "The Wall Dancers: Searching for Freedom and Connection on the Chinese Internet" (Knopf, 2026)
Not too long ago, in the 2000s and 2010s, many felt that the internet–even one behind the Great Firewall–would bring about a more open China. As President Bill Clinton famously quipped in 2000, Beijing trying to control the internet would be like “trying to nail jello to the wall.”
Things don’t look quite so certain now. China’s internet is now more controlled than it was a decade ago, with platf
Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley et al. eds., "Routledge Handbook of Chinese Media" (Routledge, 2025)
Studying Chinese media has never been a stable intellectual enterprise. As Professor Yuezhi Zhao once observed, it often resembles aiming at a target that appears clear from a distance but becomes elusive on closer inspection. Over the past decade, that target has grown even more fragmented and mobile. Media systems across the Chinese-speaking world—including the People’s Republic of China (PRC),
Daniela Stockmann and Ting Luo, "Governing Digital China" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
China's approach to digital governance has gained global influence, often evoking Orwellian 'Big Brother' comparisons. Governing Digital China (Cambridge UP, 2025) challenges this perception, arguing that China's approach is radically different in practice. This book explores the logic of popular corporatism, highlighting the bottom-up influences of China's largest platform firms and its citizens
Hang Tu, "Sentimental Republic: Chinese Intellectuals and the Maoist Past" (Harvard UP, 2025)
How does emotion shape the landscape of public intellectual debate? In Sentimental Republic: Chinese Intellectuals and the Maoist Past (Harvard UP, 2025), Hang Tu proposes emotion as a new critical framework to approach a post-Mao cultural controversy. As it entered a period of market reform, China did not turn away from revolutionary sentiments. Rather, the post-Mao period experienced a surge
China’s Climate and Air Quality Governance and EU-China Cooperation
When it comes to the global challenges posed by climate change and environmental issues, China has been presented both as a source of problems and a provider of solutions. In this episode, we examine the current state of China’s climate and environmental policies with Dr. Hermann Aubié, whose research focuses on China’s climate and air quality governance and its policy relevance for EU-China relat
Ning Leng, "Politicizing Business: How Firms Are Made to Serve the Party-State in China" (Cambridge, 2025)
In her new book, Politicizing Business: How Firms Are Made to Serve the Party-State in China (Cambridge, 2025), Ning Leng shows how Chinese officials systematically treat formally private firms as political instruments, extracting services that advance careers and maintain social control—often at the expense of business interests, economic efficiency and sustainable development. Ning Leng is an As
Gregory T. Chin and Kevin P. Gallagher, "China and the Global Economic Order" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
China and the Global Economic Order (Cambridge University Press, 2026) examines China's evolving relations with the Bretton Woods institutions (BWIs), specifically the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group from the 1980s through 2025. Using a combination of new qualitative findings and quantitative datasets, the authors observe that China has taken an evolving approach to the BWIs i
Stevan Harrell, "An Ecological History of Modern China" (U Washington Press, 2023)
Is environmental degradation an inevitable result of economic development? Can ecosystems be restored once government officials and the public are committed to doing so? These questions are at the heart of Stevan Harrell's An Ecological History of Modern China (University of Washington Press, 2023), a comprehensive account of China's transformation since the founding of the People's Republic from
Gaoheng Zhang, "Italian Dumplings and Chinese Pizzas: Transcultural Food Mobilities" (Fordham UP, 2025)
Italian Dumplings and Chinese Pizzas: Transcultural Food Mobilities (Fordham UP, 2025) by Dr. Gaoheng Zhang designs a novel analytical framework to approach transcultural food mobilities, a culinary phenomenon that has been with us for decades as a result of colonialism and globalization.Why is it surprising for some of us to read the pairing of “Chinese” with “pizzas” and “Italian” with “dumpling
Jenny Banh, "Fantasies of Hong Kong Disneyland: Attempted Indigenizations of Space, Labor, and Consumption" (Rutgers UP, 2025)
Fantasies of Hong Kong Disneyland: Attempted Indigenizations of Space, Labor, and Consumption (Rutgers UP, 2025) examines the attempt to transplant Disney's "happiest place on Earth" ethos to Hong Kong—with unhappy results. Focusing on the attempted localization and indigenization of this idea in a globalized transnational park, the book delves into the three-way dynamics of an American culture-co
Cross-Border Intimacies: Affect and Emotions in Marriage Migration Between China and Taiwan
Transnational marriage migration is among the many features of cross-border mobility that characterise the globalised world. This is also the case in the Taiwan Strait, where the complicated political situation between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland adds a unique dimension to the phenomenon. In this episode, we talk to Dr. Lara Momesso, whose new book Cross-Border Intimacies: Affect and Emotions
Di Wu et. al, eds., "China As Context: Anthropology, Post-globalisation and the Neglect of China" (Manchester UP, 2025)
A provocative collaborative project, China as Context challenges the marginalization of Chinese-grounded ideas in academia, arguing that neglecting China distorts our understanding of global complexities. Through diverse ethnographic perspectives, this volume repositions China, urging a holistic, post-global approach to the social sciences amid shifting global dynamics.
Decades-old calls to recog
Alvin K. Wong, "Unruly Comparison: Queerness, Hong Kong, and the Sinophone" (Duke UP, 2025)
How do we compare across languages, media, and histories, all without flattening differences? And what might Hong Kong teach us about doing comparison differently?
Alvin K. Wong examines these and other questions in Unruly Comparison: Queerness, Hong Kong, and the Sinophone (Duke UP, 2025), a wide-ranging and thought-provoking study of queerness in Hong Kong. Bringing together Sinophone literatur
Scott W. Gregory, "Bandits in Print: The Water Margin and the Transformations of the Chinese Novel" (Cornell UP, 2023)
Bandits in Print: "The Water Margin" and the Transformations of the Chinese Novel (Cornell UP, 2023) uses the classic novel The Water Margin (Shuihu Zhuan) to examine the world of print in early modern China. Scott W. Gregory traces the way this beloved novel about outlaw heroes, honor, corruption, and brotherhood was adapted and changed by different editor-publishers. While in other contexts prin
Dylan Loh, "China's Rising Foreign Ministry: Practices and Representations of Assertive Diplomacy" (Stanford UP, 2025)
How has China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs transformed itself into one of the most assertive diplomatic actors on the global stage? What explains the rise of “wolf warrior” practices, and how should we interpret Beijing’s evolving diplomatic identity?
In this episode, Duncan McCargo speaks with Dylan Loh, an Associate Professor in the Public Policy and Global Affairs programme at Nanyang Technol
Thomas J. Mazanec, "Poet-Monks: The Invention of Buddhist Poetry in Late Medieval China" (Cornell UP, 2024)
Poet-Monks focuses on the literary and religious practices of Buddhist poet-monks in Tang-dynasty China to propose an alternative historical arc of medieval Chinese poetry. Combining large-scale quantitative analysis with close readings of important literary texts, Thomas J. Mazanec describes how Buddhist poet-monks, who first appeared in the latter half of Tang-dynasty China, asserted a bold new
Shuchen Xiang, "Chinese Cosmopolitanism: The History and Philosophy of an Idea" (Princeton UP, 2023)
A provocative defense of a forgotten Chinese approach to identity and difference. Historically, the Western encounter with difference has been catastrophic: the extermination and displacement of aboriginal populations, the transatlantic slave trade, and colonialism. China, however, took a different historical path. In Chinese Cosmopolitanism: The History and Philosophy of an Idea (Princeton UP, 20
Kerry Brown, "The Great Reversal: Britain, China and the 400-Year Contest for Power" (Yale UP, 2024)
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 Ming emperor to conduct trade relations with faraway England; none of the expeditions carrying the letters ever arrived.
It’s an inauspicious beginning to the four centuries of foreign relations between China and what eventually became Britain, cove
Thomas David DuBois, "China in Seven Banquets: A Flavourful History" (Reaktion Books, 2024)
In this episode of New Books Network, Laura Goldberg speaks with Thomas David DuBois, Professor at Beijing Normal University, about his book China in Seven Banquets, which traces Chinese history through seven extraordinary meals.
Gastronomy and dining rituals offer a revealing historical framework: they make visible social order, ethical values, and political power, expressed through ingredients,
Suvi Rautio, "The Invention of Tradition in China: Story of a Village and a Nation Remade" (Springer Nature, 2024)
Today, anthropologist Professor Anru Lee is joining NBN as a guest host to interview me, Suvi Rautio, on my new book, The Invention of Tradition in China: Story of a Village and a Nation Remade published by Palgrave in 2024.
In China, heritage projects are sprouting across the countryside carrying the promise of Xi Jinping’s “Chinese dream” as a call for the great revival and rejuvenation of the
Weila Gong, "Implementing a Low-Carbon Future: Climate Leadership in Chinese Cities" (Oxford UP, 2025)
This episode explores what China’s subnational climate experiments tell us about the possibilities and limits of climate leadership in an era of intensified geopolitics. We discuss how China’s domestic governance dynamics matter for international climate cooperation and competition, especially as Chinese actors become central in the global low-carbon transition. Thus, we turn our attention away fr
Joseph Torigian, "The Party’s Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping" (Stanford UP, 2025)
Xi Zhongxun’s career spanned the entirety of China’s modern history. Born just two years after the 1911revolution that overthrew the Qing Dynasty, Xi was an early member of the Chinese Communist Party, tookpart in the Second World War, became an early leader of the PRC, was purged, survived the CulturalRevolution, was rehabilitated, and helped jumpstart China’s opening up as a leader in GuangdongP
Yan-ho Lai, "Legal Resistance Under Authoritarianism: The Struggle for the Rule of Law in Hong Kong" (Amsterdam UP, 2025)
Today I spoke with Senior Fellow at the Centre for Asian Law, University of Georgetown, Dr Yan-ho Lai (Eric) about his book, Legal Resistance under Authoritarianism: The Struggle for the Rule of Law in Hong Kong (Amsterdam UP, 2025). We spoke about the complexities of authoritarian consolidation by Beijing in the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong, and the role that lawyers have played in
Yasmin Cho, "Politics of Tranquility: The Material and Mundane Lives of Buddhist Nuns in Post-Mao Tibet" (Cornell UP, 2025)
Politics of Tranquility: The Material and Mundane Lives of Buddhist Nuns in Post-Mao Tibet (Cornell University Press, 2025) concerns the Tibetan Buddhist revival in China, illustrating the lives of Tibetan Buddhist nuns and exploring the political effects that arise from their nonpolitical daily engagements in the remote, mega-sized Tibetan Buddhist encampment of Yachen Gar.
Yasmin Cho's book cha
Liang Qichao, "Thoughts from the Ice-Drinker’s Studio: Essays on China and the World" (Penguin Classics, 2023)
Thoughts from the Ice-Drinker’s Studio: Essays on China and the World (Penguin Classics, 2023) brings together a newly translated selection of pre-eminent public intellectual Liang Qichao’s most influential writings, spanning the many phases of his life: his early political awakening in the final decades of the Qing dynasty, his exile in Japan after the failed 1898 reforms, and his later reflectio
John Kieschnick, "Buddhist Historiography in China" (Columbia UP, 2022)
Since the early days of Buddhism in China, monastics and laity alike have expressed a profound concern with the past. In voluminous historical works, they attempted to determine as precisely as possible the dates of events in the Buddha's life, seeking to iron out discrepancies in varying accounts and pinpoint when he delivered which sermons. Buddhist writers chronicled the history of the Dharma i
Micah S. Muscolino, "Remaking the Earth, Exhausting the People: The Burden of Conservation in Modern China" (U Washington Press, 2025)
From the 1940s to the 1960s, soil and water conservation measures transformed both the arid, erosion-prone environment of China’s Loess Plateau and the lives of rural people. Remaking the Earth, Exhausting the People: The Burden of Conservation in Modern China (U Washington Press, 2025) by Dr. Micah Muscolino explores how the Chinese state imposed the burden of conservation on rural communities an
Yanqiu Zheng, "In Search of Admiration and Respect: Chinese Cultural Diplomacy in the United States, 1875–1974" (U Michigan Press, 2024)
What does it mean for a country to seek admiration — and what kinds of institutions try to make that admiration possible?
Yanqiu Zheng’s In Search of Admiration and Respect: Chinese Cultural Diplomacy in the United States, 1875–1974 (U Michigan Press, 2024) traces how China attempted to reshape its international image across a century marked by imperialism, political upheaval, civil war, and Cold
Carl Benedikt Frey, "How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations" (Princeton UP, 2025)
In How Progress Ends: Technology, Innovation, and the Fate of Nations (Princeton University Press, 2025), Carl Benedikt Frey challenges the conventional belief that economic and technological progress is inevitable. For most of human history, stagnation was the norm, and even today progress and prosperity in the world's largest, most advanced economies--the United States and China--have fallen sho
Jennifer Yip, "Grains of Conflict: The Struggle for Food in China’s Total War, 1937-1945" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
How did China’s Nationalists feed their armies during the long war against Japan? In her new book, Grains of Conflict: The Struggle for Food in China’s Total War, 1937-1945 (Cambridge UP, 2025), Jennifer Yip (National University of Singapore) looks at China’s military grain systems from field to frontline. Yip examines the bureaucratic processes and deeply human stories of requisitioning, transpor
Yunxiang Gao, "Arise Africa, Roar China: Black and Chinese Citizens of the World in the Twentieth Century" (UNC Press, 2021)
Arise Africa, Roar China: Black and Chinese Citizens of the World in the Twentieth Century (University of North Carolina Press, 2021) explores the close relationships between three of the most famous twentieth-century African Americans, W. E. B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, and Langston Hughes, and their little-known Chinese allies during World War II and the Cold War--journalist, musician, and Christia
Radio ReOrient 13.4: “The Repression of the Uyghurs,” with Zumretay Arkin, hosted by Claudia Radiven and Marchella Ward
In this episode, Chella Ward and Claudia Radiven were in conversation with Zumretay Arkin, discussing the Uyghur genocide in East Turkestan. Zumretay is Chair of the Women’s Committee at the World Uyghur Congress (WUC). The WUC is an international organization acting as an umbrella organization representing and advocating for Uyghurs around the world whether in East Turkestan or the diaspora. In o
Strings of Identity: The Horse-Head Fiddle and Mongolian Identity in China (with Ying Song)
In this episode, we trace how the horse-head fiddle has evolved in the People’s Republic of China — from a traditional steppe instrument to a cultural symbol reshaped through state representation and modern performance. We discuss how it is made, taught, and performed in China, how it is portrayed in Chinese institutions, and how young Mongols today engage with the instrument as a way to express i
Mark L. Clifford, "The Troublemaker: How Jimmy Lai Became a Billionaire, Hong Kong's Greatest Dissident, and China's Most Feared Critic" (Free Press, 2024)
The extraordinary life story of the billionaire businessman Jimmy Lai, a leading Hong Kong democracy activist fighting for freedom of speech who became China’s most famous political prisoner.
Jimmy Lai escaped mainland China when he was twelve years old, at the height of a famine that killed tens of millions. In Hong Kong, he hustled and often slept overnight on a table in a clothing factory whe
AI, News, and the State: Reinstitutionalising Journalism in Global China’s Algorithmic Age: A conversation with Dr. Joanne Kuai
How is artificial intelligence transforming journalism as both a profession and an institution? In this episode, Ning Ao speaks to Dr. Joanne Kuai, exploring how AI reshapes journalistic roles, organisational structures, and governance systems through the lens of China’s media landscape—while drawing comparisons with the US and EU.
Dr. Joanne Kuai is a Research Fellow in the School of Media and C
Taru Salmenkari, "Global Ideas, Local Adaptations: Chinese Activism and the Will to Make Civil Society" (Edward Elgar, 2025)
Exploring the boundaries, fringes, and inner workings of civil society, Taru Salmenkari investigates local forms of political agency in China in light of the globalization of political values, practices, and institutions in Global Ideas, Local Adaptations: Chinese Activism and the Will to Make Civil Society (Edward Elgar, 2025). She provides a theoretical framework for globalization, examining ne
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