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PODCAST

New Books in Chinese Studies

New Books Network

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox:

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50:38

Avner Greif et al., "Two Paths to Prosperity: Culture...

New Books in Chinese Studies ·

2026/04/02

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, argues that the answer comes from how European and Chinese organized cooperation—through corporations in

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80:39

Jeffrey Wasserstrom, "Everything You Wanted to Know...

New Books in Chinese Studies ·

2026/03/31

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 about China. Drawing on decades of research and first-hand experience in Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong,

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45:25

Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese Food

New Books in Chinese Studies ·

2026/03/30

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 took place on December 22, 2020. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support

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60:02

Zheng Liu, "Cultural Mavericks: The Business and...

New Books in Chinese Studies ·

2026/03/28

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 Mavericks: The Business and Politics of Independent Bookselling in China (Columbia UP, 2026) by Dr. Zheng Liu

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65:18

Nellie Chu, "Precarious Accumulation: Fast Fashion...

New Books in Chinese Studies ·

2026/03/28

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 high-speed, low-margin world of just-in-time garment production that fuels the constant accumulation of

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57:26

James Lin, "The Global Vanguard: Agrarian Development...

New Books in Chinese Studies ·

2026/03/25

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 from an agricultural colony into an economic power, and it then attempted to export its agrarian

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28:15

Gods and the State: Environmental Change in the Blang...

New Books in Chinese Studies ·

2026/03/20

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 arrival of the state disrupted long-standing relations between Blang communities and the local mountain gods,

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70:45

Christopher Munn, "Penalties of Empire: Capital...

New Books in Chinese Studies ·

2026/03/17

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, and crimes of passion and desperation. These chapters describe the proceedings in court and the

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44:41

Yanshuo Zhang, "Creative Belonging: The Qiang and...

New Books in Chinese Studies ·

2026/03/14

China is a multicultural country home to fifty-five ethnic minority groups, yet due to linguistic and cultural barriers many of these groups remain understudied or unknown in the West. The Qiang, one of modern China’s officially recognized ethnic minorities, is also China’s longest-standing ethnoracial identity marker that has existed since the earliest recorded history of China. Creative Belonging: The Qiang and Multiethnic Imagination in Modern China (U Michigan Press, 2026) by Dr. Yanshuo Zhang

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50:49

Cheng Li, "Contested Environmentalisms: Trees and the...

New Books in Chinese Studies ·

2026/03/12

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 explores the seemingly contradictory rhetoric and desires of Chinese conservation from the early twentieth century through to the present.Drawing on literary, cinematic, scientific, archival, and

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49:49

Cheng Li, "Contested Environmentalisms: Trees and the...

New Books in Chinese Studies ·

2026/03/12

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 rhetoric and desires of Chinese conservation from the early twentieth century through to the

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71:06

Guoqi Xu, "The Idea of China: A Contested History"...

New Books in Chinese Studies ·

2026/03/08

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 mystique of the Middle Kingdom and nostalgia for heroic twentieth-century resistance. Yet Chinese

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43:42

Rian Thum, "Islamic China: An Asian History" (Harvard...

New Books in Chinese Studies ·

2026/03/05

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 others across the Ming, Qing, and Republican eras. Rian is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of

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59:37

Christine Loh, "Underground Front: The Chinese...

New Books in Chinese Studies ·

2026/03/01

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 background, Christine Loh’s book Underground Front: The Chinese Communist Party in Hong Kong(Hong Kong

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63:51

Ray Yep, "Man in a Hurry: Murray MacLehose and...

New Books in Chinese Studies ·

2026/02/20

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 looming large. The governor successfully carried out various social reforms and he also handled various

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49:03

Bin Chen, "Hui Muslims in the Shaping of Modern...

New Books in Chinese Studies ·

2026/02/16

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 viewed private Muslim teachers schools as valuable allies in their efforts to assert influence in China’s

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52:57

Ruixue Jia et al., "The Highest Exam: How the Gaokao...

New Books in Chinese Studies ·

2026/02/15

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. Ruixue Jia is a professor of economics at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at UC San Diego. She

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28:38

Competing Visions for International Order

New Books in Chinese Studies ·

2026/02/13

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 talks to Ville Sinkkonen (Finnish Institute of International Affairs), Matti Puranen (Finnish National

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44:43

Yi-Ling Liu, "The Wall Dancers: Searching for Freedom...

New Books in Chinese Studies ·

2026/02/12

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 platforms, content creators, and tech companies now firmly guided by rules and signals from Beijing. Yi-Ling

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38:35

Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley et al. eds., "Routledge Handbook...

New Books in Chinese Studies ·

2026/02/12

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), Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, and transnational Chinese communities—have been reshaped by rapid

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1,035 results

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