With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that 1949 was actually the beginning, not the end, of the Chinese revolution.” Building from this premise, Andrew G. Walder’s new book looks at the ways that China was transformed in the 1950s in order to understand why and how Mao’s decisions and initiatives – among those of other leaders – had the effects that they did. Written … Continue reading China Under Mao: An Interview
Eugene N. Anderson’s new book offers an expansive history of food, environment, and their relationships in China. From prehistory through the Ming and beyond, Food and Environment in Early and Medieval China (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014) pays careful attention to a wide range of contexts of concern with nature and its resources. Readers of Anderson’s book will find fascinating discussions of rice agriculture and fermentation, the … Continue reading Food and Environment in Early and Medieval China: An Interview
Nicolas Rasmussen’s new book maps the intersection of biotechnology and the business world in the last decades of the twentieth century. Gene Jockeys: Life Science and the Rise of Biotech Enterprise (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014) takes readers into the fascinating world of entrepreneur-biologists as they developed five of the first products of genetic engineering. Based on a documentary archive that includes oral history interviews and corporate … Continue reading Gene Jockeys: An Interview
Janet Vertesi’s fascinating new book is an ethnography of the Mars Rover mission that takes readers into the practices involved in working with the two robotic explorers Spirit and Opportunity. Based on two years of immersive ethnography from 2006-2008, Seeing like a Rover: How Robots, Teams, and Images Craft Knowledge of Mars (University of Chicago Press, 2015) focuses on the visuality of the mission, exploring “how scientists and engineers on Earth … Continue reading Seeing Like a Rover: An Interview
Parks Coble’s new book is a wonderful study of memory, war, and history that takes the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945 and its aftermath as its focus. China’s War Reporters: The Legacy of Resistance against Japan (Harvard University Press, 2015) look closely at writing done by journalists and intellectuals during the war, as well as the “re-remembering” of the war in modern China. Collectively, the chapters of China’s War Reporters argue that the … Continue reading China’s War Reporters: An Interview
Wilt Idema’s new book traces a story and its transformations through hundreds of years of Chinese literature. The Resurrected Skeleton: From Zhuangzi to Lu Xun (Columbia University Press, 2014) collects and translates variations of the tale of Master Zhuang in his encounter with a skeleton who comes back to life and wreaks all sorts of havoc in the lives of those around him. (In some versions, Zhuang … Continue reading The Resurrected Skeleton: An Interview
Lisa Stevenson’s new book opens with two throat-singing women and one listening king. Whether we hear them sitting down to a normal night’s dinner (as the women) or stalking the pages of a short story from Italo Calvino’s Under the Jaguar Sun (as the king), listening to these voices can potentially transform our notion of listening itself, as well as our understanding of what a “self” is … Continue reading Life Beside Itself: An Interview
Joseph D. Hankins’s marvelous new ethnography of the contemporary Buraku people looks at the labor involved in “identifying, dismantling, and reproducing” the Buraku situation in Japan and beyond. Taking readers on a journey from Lubbock, Texas to Tokyo, India, and back again, Working Skin: Making Leather, Making a Multicultural Japan (University of California Press, 2014) brings a diverse range of ethnographic experiences to bear on understanding the … Continue reading Working Skin: An Interview
Daryn Lehoux’s new book will forever change the way you think about garlic and magnets. What Did the Romans Know?: An Inquiry into Science and Worldmaking (University of Chicago Press, 2012) is a fascinating account of the co-production of facts and worlds, taking readers into the sciences of Rome from the first century BC to the second century AD. Masterfully blending approaches from the history and philosophy of … Continue reading What Did the Romans Know?: An Interview
David A. Pietz’s new book argues that China’s water challenges are historically grounded, and that these historical realities are not going to disappear anytime soon. Using a careful history of water and environmental management to inform our understanding of water-related challenges in contemporary China, Yellow River: The Problem of Water in Modern China (Harvard University Press, 2015) asks, how did China reach its current state of water … Continue reading Yellow River: An Interview
Carla Nappi 