Trump's re-election disappointed many in the U.S. and abroad. To help them process, Jeremiah and David talk with literary translator and Pennsylvania voter Brendan O’Kane about Zhang Dai, the Ming-Qing transition, and living through an age of upheaval.

Jeffrey Wasserstrom joins Barbarians at the Gate to discuss the legacy of the Hong Kong protests, Xi Jinping’s patriotic education law, and how Beijing’s control over historical narratives is reshaping academic engagement with China.

How China transitioned from imperial rule to Chinese Socialism and all about the key characters whose opposing visions for China's future created so much chaos along the way.

A supernatural crisis pits an anxious autocrat against his own functionaries when a hunt for soul-stealing sorcerers turns into a political witch-hunt among 18th-century China’s “deep state.”

In this episode of Barbarians at the Gates, Edward Wong of the New York Times joins David and me to discuss Ed's new book, At the Edge of Empire. We discuss frontiers, what the Qing Dynasty means for China, and the different generational perspectives on China's recent past.

How opium started a war that still impacts China today.

20 years after “Shangri-La” was coined in the Western imagination, a Russian adventurer published a memoir from the valley of Lijiang, southwest China, that is strikingly similar yet a world apart.

David and Jeremiah speak with Mike Wester about running @thebeijinger, organizing the “Safe and Sane” communities during the pandemic, and the future of expats in Beijing. Also, Jeremiah surprises David and Mike with an announcement.

‘The Travels of Marco Polo’ is often held up as the earliest Western account of China and Asia. What’s actually inside the covers might surprise you.

On this episode of Barbarians at the Gate, we talk to artist, educator, and social entrepreneur Kristel Ouwehand of Snowland Art

David and I discuss what's going on with the Qing history project, a controversy about Genghis Khan in France, and how PRC continues punching back against potentially problematic pasts.

In this episode, we talk with journalist and travel writer Thomas Bird about his latest book, The Harmony Express. 

In my first column for the China Books Review series “The China Archive,” I revisit the 1936 travel classic News from Tartary by Peter Fleming.

Chinese history — very distant and very near — is filled with people who did not, and do not, abide by the government's "official" version of events. Ian Johnson gives them a voice in his latest book, Sparks.

Isabel Nepstad, CEO of BellaTerra Consluting, takes time out of her busy schedule to drop by the Barbarians at the Gate studio to share her career journey, give advice to those looking to pursue their professional lives in China and discuss the challenges and opportunities in the environmental and agricultural sectors in China and around the world.

When classes first convened on June 16, 1924, China’s first modern military academy aimed to reunite a divided nation. It didn’t quite work out that way.

Fueled by too many red bulls (Jeremiah) and some pretty good pharmaceuticals following an emergency root canal (David), our intrepid cohosts throw caution to the wind and attempt to fix US-China Relations in a single podcast.

Author James Zimmerman’s new book examines the surprising stories behind the 1923 robbery of the Peking Express, China’s most modern train at the time

In this episode of Barbarians at the Gate, we are joined by Ben Cubbage of Elevated Trips. Ben calls in from the lofty heights of Qinghai to talk about life on the plateau, post-COVID tourism, and running an eco-travel and guiding business in China.

On this episode of Barbarians at the Gate, Matthew Hu of the Beijing Cultural Heritage Preservation Center joins Jeremiah and David Moser to look at the Forbidden City's past, present, and future and the challenges of restoring and exhibiting the museum’s 1.8 million artifacts.

“The success of US-China relations relies on forging relationships at a personal level,” writes Jeremiah Jenne reviewing John Delury’s “Agents of Subversion” and Terry Lautz’s “Americans in China."

Philip Cunningham joins the Barbarians at the Gate Podcast to discuss his Substack CCTV follies in which Phil watches the nightly Xinwen Lianbo so that you don't have to. We look at the ritual of news in defining the boundaries of discourse and the framing of stories in the Chinese media.

Podcaster Zhang Yajun joins Jeremiah and David to talk about the situation in Beijing as COVID spreads throughout the city.

This special episode of Barbarians at the Gate recorded last night provides a “time stamp" and an initial reaction to the protests in several major Chinese cities on November 26 and 27, including the situation in Beijing.

Award-winning journalist, Newsweek Bureau Chief, and long-time Beijing resident Melinda Liu joins David Moser and me on a special episode of Barbarians at the Gate. We're taking the long view of lockdowns, US-China relations, and some fascinating stories of World War II.

China’s Party elite get ready to meet…not that it matters much to those living down the street.

David returns to Beijing and Jeremiah can't leave the city. We're both navigating the new information and media environment in the run-up to the October Party Congress. BATG is back with the scene from Beijing.

David and Jeremiah share their on-the-ground observations from both sides of the Taiwan Strait

In 18th-century China, evil spirits and sorcerers were a constant menace to the public and the government

Few topics have been requested more than the Forbidden City, located in the center of the great city of Beijing. To help introduce this iconic palace complex, Laszlo invited longtime Beijing resident, Jeremiah Jenne of "Barbarians at the Gate Podcast" fame onto the CHP to discuss the history of the Forbidden City from its construction in the Ming Dynasty up to the present day.