Dragon mountain again
A few days ago Jonathan and I were discussing Steven Owen’s review of Jonathan Spence’s new book. Jonathan was not that impressed with the review, a...
Category: Books
Return to Dragon Mountain
There is a long review of Jonathan Spence’s new book Return to Dragon Mountain: Memories of a Late Ming Man in TNR. Just the fact that there is a long rev...
Book stuff
Once again it is time to ask questions about books. Order forms for the Spring are due, so I need to figure out what I want to order. Thus I am asking for sugge...
Ding Mocun, Lung Ying-tai and Lust, Caution
Ang Lee‘s (李安) new movie Lust, Caution (色，戒) is apparently being released later this week in the United States. The movie won a Golden Lion at the Venice ...
Teaching Qing History
In comments for the previous post Jonathan Dresner asked if Zelin’s new Merchants of Zigong would be a good book for an undergraduate class on the Qing. I...
Exporting Maoism
In my Intro to Asian Studies class this semester I am teaching Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s The Girl From the Coast The story is a fictionalized account of his...
Poverty and Prison Camps
I recently finished reading Crime, Punishment, and the Prison in Modern China, 1895-1949 by Frank Dikötter. You can find pictures from the book posted on his we...
ILoveShopping
I’m not sure why some people think that posting pictures of the books you just got is blog-worthy, but as I am in Shanghai I have also been testing my wei...
How Taiwan Became Chinese
Salon.com is having an interesting little discussion of Tonio Andrade’s new book How Taiwan Became Chinese. I have not yet read the book, but I am familia...
The changing world of scholarship
I got a box of books in the mail yesterday. This book to be exact I’m not really interested in reading it, as I assume I already know what’s ...
Democracy Quote of the Day
“We Communists always oppose a one-party dictatorship, and don’t approve of the Nationalists having a one-party dictatorship. The CCP certainly does...
The History of Sino-Japanese Relations as seen in Japan's Most Popular Travel Guide
The Globe-trotter Travel Guidebook, which is the official English name for 地球の歩き方 (Lit: The way to wander the world) is the most popular Japanese travel guide s...
Google Books: PDF Download Feature
The Google Books project is an exciting new chapter in the world’s digitization of printed materials together with the Gutenberg project. I have blogged a...