The China Beat boasts an impressive club of historians and despite the contemporary focus of the site, history is never far from the contributors’ minds. Fittingly, Kate Merkel-Hess posts “5 Chinese historical events that don’t get much attention” with some interesting and well-argued choices. Definitely worth checking out. (PRC link.)
Because I can’t post to that forum I’ll do s0 here. Although popularly disregarded now battles yet did and do determine history and The Battle of Talas is an historical event that surely trumps some of the others noted in importance and neglect.
Scott,
It’s true that military history is getting short shrift in the academy these days. The Battle of Talas is an interesting choice, though it’s significance has been up for debate for some time–there are a range of ideas from ‘border skirmish’ all the way up to a battle to decide whether Turkestan would be culturally Muslim or Chinese. It certainly merits consideration on this list.
BTW: You may want to try and search out the proxy codes for blogspot, wordpress, etc. When installed correctly, they allow easy access to those sites including the ability to post comments. I have them on my site, and there are other versions floating around cyberspace as well.
Cheers.