Jottings from the Granite Studio

Summer has arrived. I keep posting that and the next day it gets hotter. Yesterday, walking from the archives (west side of the Forbidden City) to an appointment on Jianguomennei Dajie was akin to hiking through an industrial dryer. The best part? It’s still only May. Welcome to Beijing: God’s own microwave, pass the popcorn.

I’ve worked around some nice scenery. At my first job out of college, I worked for an NGO off of Lafayette Park in Washington DC, kitty-corner to the White House. We’d spend our lunches playing aerobie on the closed section of Pennsylvania Avenue and checking out the protest du jour.

That said…nothing like the Number One Historical Archives in Beijing. If you get bored with research, just look outside the window at the red walls and glazed roofs of the Forbidden City not even 50 yards away. Talk about your basic inspiration.

A couple of interesting essays worth checking out:

• The first is by Richard at The Peking Duck. Richard is off in the land of beer and brats, and finds Germany a useful muse for thinking of things China—now if he can just get his iPod working…

• The Opinion Journal has a commentary by Andrew Ferguson about amateur historians. One of the most well-known and accomplished, Abraham Lincoln expert Bill O. Hall, passed away in February this year at the age of 95. I’m sure there are some colleagues of mine who might see the “Don’t leave scholarship to the professionals” tag-line as a bit of a slight, but in truth some great work has been done by non-professionals. In old China, many of the great paintings, poetry, and even historical works were the products of ‘amateur’ scholar-officials filling their spare moments. What did the late Mr. Hall do when he wasn’t immersed in Lincolnalia? Why, he was a retired government official. How very Confucian. (h/t Arts and Letters Daily)

• Finally, (from the professional ranks) UC Irvine professor Jeffrey Wasserstrom follows up his recent essay in the Christian Science Monitor with a think-piece for the History News Network entitled “Why aren’t we seeing the end of the Communist Party in China?” Wasserstrom argues that events outside China will be as important as internal developments in determining the future prospects for the CCP.

Busy week planned. More later. Stay cool.