Audio, History
Jeremiah Jenne
What can the end of the Ming Dynasty tell us ...

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.

What can the end of the Ming Dynasty tell us about the election of Donald Trump and what comes next
Contemporary China, History, Audio
Jeremiah Jenne
Historical Battles: Rewriting China's Past to ...

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.

Historical Battles: Rewriting China's Past to Shape the Future
Audio, History
Jeremiah Jenne
Dan Snow's History Hit The Creation of the ...

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.

Dan Snow's History Hit The Creation of the People's Republic of China
Book Reviews, History
Jeremiah Jenne
Philip Kuhn: Sorcery and Bureaucracy in Qing ...

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.”

Philip Kuhn: Sorcery and Bureaucracy in Qing China
Audio, History, Travel
Jeremiah Jenne
Edge of Empire with author and journalist ...

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.

Edge of Empire with author and journalist Edward Wong

Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925)

Envy and Antipathy: Chinese historical attitudes toward Japan

Envy and Antipathy: Chinese historical attitudes toward Japan

It’s tempting to reduce the history of Japan/China relations to the horrific events of the Second World War, but the Sino-Japanese relationship goes back much further than that, and has long been characterized by a mixture of envy and antipathy.

A Historian's review of Jet Li's Fearless: Who was the real Huo Yuanjia 霍元甲？

A Historian's review of Jet Li's Fearless: Who was the real Huo Yuanjia 霍元甲？

The 2006 Hong Kong film Fearless stars Jet Li as the famous martial artist Huo Yuanjia. But like all movies, Fearless takes some creative liberties with its subject. Who was the real Huo Yuanjia?