Berry on Early Modern Information
I admit that I’m a great admirer of Berry, but this is going to be fun. My own thoughts about Early modern Japan as an intellectual renaissance are going ...
Category: General
Why you could not be the Son of Heaven
Late last night I found myself watching TV, and there was the World’s Strongest Man competition, taped in Chengdu last October. Apparently the competition consi...
Chinese Philology Meets Canadian Politics
This is not history-related per se, nor indeed more than a triviality, but I am spending a few weeks in Vancouver (now in the midst of the Canadian election) an...
It’s not an institution if it doesn’t have rules….
Via World Press Review, an interesting account of undercurrents of opposition to changing the Imperial Household Law to allow female emperors or emperors descen...
Seasonal treat for Koreanists
It has been brought to my attention that historians of premodern Korea have a very special Christmas treat in the form of the annals of the Chosŏn Dynasty (Chos...
What good is ritual?
Rites (li禮) are something that you talk about a lot when you teach Chinese history. Usually the word is translated as “ritual,” which is a pretty ac...
Drop the book and step away from the scholarship
Apparently Homeland Security is monitoring Interlibrary Loan. A UMass student was questioned for having ordered a copy of the Little Red Book. According to the ...
danger + opportunity
This entry on pinyin.info looks at the misunderstanding of the construction of characters. This tendency – particularly among the writers of motivational/...
History Carnival #22
Welcome to History Carnival #22, the final edition of 2005. I’m deeply grateful to Sharon Howard for starting this whole thing off eleven months ago, and ...
Do we want to judge?
Caleb Mc Daniel has a nice post on President Bush, and his recent claims that his policies in Iraq can only be judged by future historians. Caleb points out tha...
Lee hang-bok’s Travel – 무술조천록(戊戌朝天錄)
이항복(李恒福 1556~1618)은 조선 중기의 인물로, 군사상, 정치상으로 상당히 활약을 했지만, 오히려 어린 시절의 그를 소재로 한 민담이 더 유명한 인물입니다. 이 자리를 빌어 학술적이라고 하긴 어렵지만 재미있는 이야기를 하나 소개해볼까 합니다. 임진왜란이 거의 끝나갈 즈음인 무술...
Another Nail in the Ninja Coffin
In response to a query on the H-Japan list, samurai historian par excellance Karl Friday wrote: There are basically no publications in English on ninja worth re...
Asian History Carnival 2
The 2nd installment of the Asian History Carnival is coming next week, December 12th. The announcement is out a bit late but send your nominations to konrad [at...