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

Contemporary China

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Back to the Land: Author Alec Ash on escaping to Dali, rural retreats, and a return to England

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Back to the Land: Author Alec Ash on escaping to Dali, rural retreats, and a return to England

Author Alec Ash stops by the Barbarians at the Gate studio on his way through Beijing. David and I talk with Alec about Dali in a time of COVID, Alec's new book about urban refugees in the mountains of Yunnan, and his plans for the future.

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Barbarians at the Gate: CoCo19 and the Quarantines (The Scene from Beijing)

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Barbarians at the Gate: CoCo19 and the Quarantines (The Scene from Beijing)

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.

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Barbarians at the Gate: Ideology and Education in China with Jiang Xueqin

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Barbarians at the Gate: Ideology and Education in China with Jiang Xueqin

Educator Jiang Xueqin joins us in this episode to discuss ideology in schools, the effort to turn Chinese universities into “world-class” institutions, and cross-national educational projects and international schools in an era of Covid-19 and US-China decoupling.

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Barbarians at the Gate: Understanding China's Nationalism with Peter Gries

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Barbarians at the Gate: Understanding China's Nationalism with Peter Gries

Jeremiah and David discuss the rise of Chinese nationalism with this week’s guest, Peter Gries, Professor of Chinese Politics at the University of Manchester, and the Lee Kai Hung Chair of the Manchester China Institute.

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Barbarians at the Gate: Locked Down in Beijing!

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Barbarians at the Gate: Locked Down in Beijing!

Jeremiah and David discuss the current COVID-19 situation in China along with special guest Zhang Yajun (Wo Men Podcast). Jeremiah and Yajun have been confined to their apartment complex for (as of taping) 13 days after one of their neighbors tested positive for COVID-19. Jeremiah, David, and Yajun share stories of living with the current outbreak, how other folks are handling the situation, the response by local officials, and where China's Zero COVID policy goes from here.

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Barbarians at the Gate: Asymmetry, Decoupling, and the Information Deficit affecting China and the World

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Barbarians at the Gate: Asymmetry, Decoupling, and the Information Deficit affecting China and the World

David and Jeremiah are joined by Yajun Zhang, host of the Wo Men Podcast and a long-time media watcher and community organizer in Beijing, to talk about the growing gap between what China and the United States know about each other and about the rest of the world.

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Barbarians at the Gate: The Sporting Superpower and China's Olympic Dreams

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Barbarians at the Gate: The Sporting Superpower and China's Olympic Dreams

On the cusp of the Chinese New Year and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, Jeremiah and David record an Olympian episode of the podcast. The guest is Mark Dreyer, a veteran sports reporter, who has just released his new book, Sporting Superpower: An Insider’s View on China’s Quest to Be the Best.

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Mandarin Mayhem III: The Cantonese Conundrum with author and journalist James Griffiths

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Mandarin Mayhem III: The Cantonese Conundrum with author and journalist James Griffiths

In this episode, Jeremiah and David talk with James Griffiths, Asia Correspondent for the Globe and Mail, about his new book Speak Not: Empire, Identity and the Politics of Language.

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Barbarians at the Gate: Studying China in the 21st Century (What Everybody Needs to Know) with special guest Maura Cunningham

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Barbarians at the Gate: Studying China in the 21st Century (What Everybody Needs to Know) with special guest Maura Cunningham

In this episode, David and Jeremiah talk to veteran China scholar Maura Cunningham about the perils and possibilities of researching China in the "New Era."

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Barbarians at the Gate: China's New Youth

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Barbarians at the Gate: China's New Youth

Jeremiah and David catch up with writer, editor, and journalist Alec Ash, to discuss the new US edition of his 2016 book Wish Lanterns: Young Lives in New China.

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Barbarians at the Gate: Raising Little Soldiers

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Barbarians at the Gate: Raising Little Soldiers

Lenora Chu, journalist and author of the Little Soldiers: An American Boy, a Chinese School, and the Global Race to Achieve, joins us for part two of our discussion of education in China.