Interview: “Much to discover in the Forbidden City,” Radio Beijing AM774
My conversation with Bruce Connolly of Radio Beijing AM774 on leading walks and discussions at the Forbidden City. [Read More...]
Articles
“A Boxer on the Boxers,” The World of Chinese
New post for The World of Chinese Magazine in which I call on cinema's most famous boxer, Rocky Balboa for his thoughts on the Boxer Uprising. [Read More...]
“The Specter of the Tianjin Massacre,” The World of Chinese
In 1870, the city of Tianjin exploded in a day of rage. By nightfall, 21 foreign residents of the city were dead, including 16 nuns dragged from an orphanage and publicly tortured to death. The still-new network of trans-continental telegraph cable spread word of the outrage around the globe. [Read More...]
Interview: “Lakes and canals of historic Haidian,” Radio Beijing AM774
My conversation with Bruce Connolly of Radio Beijing AM774 on the Summer Palaces and the the waterways of imperial Beijing. [Read More...]
“Dens of Iniquity,” Here! Dongguan Magazine
Where do you go in Guangdong when you want to hang out and score good drugs? In the 1920s and 1930s, it would have been your friendly neighborhood opium den. [Read More...]
“The Empire Strikes Back: The Battle of Sanyuanli,” Here! Dongguan Magazine
For many, the Battle of Sanyuanli symbolized China's ability to finally stand up to the foreign invaders. [Read More...]
“The Barbarian and the Babe,” The World of Chinese
The story of An Lushan has been told so many times that it qualifies as Tang Dynasty slash fic. There is the aging emperor, his sensual concubine, and the exotic foreign warrior who comes between them. But this story is far more Byzantine than an 8th-century love triangle gone horribly sideways. [Read More...]
“A few days in North Korea,” Here! Dongguan Magazine
I have celebrated St. Patrick’s Day in numerous countries, cities, and towns around the world including outdoors on the Appalachian Trail, on the Tibetan Plateau, and one semi-memorable night in which I turned into Shiva Destroyer of Worlds while celebrating at a Holiday Inn in White Plains, New York. I thought I was safe celebrating St. Patrick’s Day in the one capital city on Earth without an Irish Pub. [Read More...]
“Walking the Pearl River Delta,” Here! Dongguan Magazine
INTREPID OR INSANE, IT’S HARD TO SAY, BUT HERE!’S ROGUE HISTORIAN DECIDED TO TRAVEL FROM GUANGZHOU TO DONGGUAN TO SHENZHEN…ON FOOT [Read More...]
“The Secret Sexual Life of Zhou Enlai and the Limits of Historical Knowledge,” LA Review of Books China Blog
Retroactively outing a historical figure remains problematic, not because of the sex — Zhou Enlai may well have had erotic relations with other men — but because such studies are often methodologically flawed. Too often, contemporary understandings of romance and sexuality, gay or straight, are read into texts from another time period. But doing so can prejudice the data and lead to shaky conclusions. It is an error of perception when we use present-day standards to judge or categorize evidence of past behavior. [Read More...]
“Send Lawyers, Guns, and Money: Part IV”
In one of the great ironies of history, none of the treaties directly deals with the cause of the war: opium. It would take another conflict, the Arrow War of 1856-1860, which resulted in the occupation of Beijing and the looting and burning of the imperial summer palaces, to finally legalize the trade in the narcotic. [Read More...]
“Out of Autocracy, Off the Shelves”
It is an unfortunate axiom of publishing in China that the best way for your book to gain international attention is to have the Chinese government make it unavailable to domestic readers. Such is the fate of Out of Imperial Autocracy (Zouchu dizhi), the latest book by the eminent public intellectual and economic historian Qin Hui, published earlier this year. [Read More...]
“Send Lawyers, Guns, and Money: Part III”
The HMS Nemesis was 56 meters long and 29 meters wide. She sailed for the China coast in 1839 carrying two guns that fired 32-pound rounds and four that fired six-pound rounds, plus a launcher for rockets and torpedoes. She could operate by either sail or steam, and her shallow draft meant that she could move as effectively on inland rivers as she could in open ocean. Her hull was protected by iron and designed with watertight compartments to keep the ship afloat even if the outer hull was breached. She was a devastating weapon of war. [Read More...]
The Perils of Advising the Empire: Yuan Shikai and Frank Goodnow
New post by me at ChinaFile. The Perils of Advising the Empire: Yuan Shikai and Frank Goodnow. [Read More...]
New Post on World of Chinese: Lawyers, Guns, and Money, Part II
I started writing a little post for the World of Chinese website on The Opium War. The project has since mutated into a multi-part macro history of drugs and violence on the Chinese coast. I'm having a lot of fun writing it. I hope you enjoy reading it! [Read More...]