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East Asian Studies
Interviews with scholars of East Asia about their new books.
September 3, 2026
Privileged But Powerless
What do the people closest to power really think about the system they serve? That’s perhaps one of the most important questions one could ask about N…
September 2, 2026
Whistling Arrows and Heavenly Horses
John Ross speaks with Scott Forbes Crawford about his book The Han-Xiongnu War, 133 BC–89 AD (Pen & Sword Military, 2024) For more than two centuries,…
August 30, 2026
Steven Herman
Steven Herman spent 1990-2006 in Japan, most of those years with Voice of America. He served as South East Asia Bureau Chief as well as North East Asi…
August 29, 2026
Savage
Savage: The Making of Modern Dogs in British Hong Kong (Cornell University Press, 2026) explores the dark side of colonial modernity through canin…
August 27, 2026
China's Aristocratic Age
The Springs-and-Autumns period is a strange period in Chinese history. Coming after the decline of the Zhou, and before the famous Warring States Peri…
August 25, 2026
Easting the West
With commentary on the emergence of a ‘multipolar’ world, of transatlantic rifts and the rise of ‘middle powers’ ubiquitous, tales of the decline of s…
August 23, 2026
Old Lhasa
Michael Aldrich joins John Ross to discuss Old Lhasa: A Biography, his richly detailed portrait of Tibet’s historic capital. It’s the third book in hi…
August 19, 2026
WE HEREBY REFUSE
John talks to Bruce Rutledge, founder of Chin Music Press, about running an independent Asia-focused press, the origins of the company in Tokyo, and t…
August 19, 2026
Routes of Taiwan Tea
From misty mountain oolongs to the global boba boom, Taiwan’s teas carry far more than flavor. They embody contested borders, evolving identities, and…
August 18, 2026
Next Time on Dragon Ball
Since its debut in 1984, Dragon Ball has become one of the most popular, influential, and lucrative media franchises in the world. In Next Time on Dra…
August 16, 2026
Echoes of Incense on the Shikoku Pilgrimage
Amy Chavez talks to Don Weiss, currently mid-way through the Shikoku Pilgrimage — Japan's 1,300 km Buddhist route that has been walked for almost as…
August 15, 2026
The Aesthetics of Risk in Franco-East Asian Literatures
The Aesthetics of Risk in Franco-East Asian Literatures (Cambridge UP, 2026) is the first book that examines the concept of risk in non-anglophone wor…
August 13, 2026
The Last Emperor of China
The life of Puyi, the last emperor of China, often feels like a spectacle—in no small part due to the 1987 Oscar-winning film The Last Emperor. Yet th…
August 12, 2026
Sima Qian–China’s Grand Historian
John Ross chats with repeat guest Tim McGirk about Sima Qian (c. 145–86 BC), the Father of Chinese History. He earned this accolade for his monumental…
August 8, 2026
Korean Buddhism
Today we're looking at a book that fills a gap that has existed for a long time. Korean Buddhism: Selected Readings from Primary Texts (U Hawaii Press…
August 8, 2026
Hiroshima's Last Witnesses and Japan's Nuclear Future
M. G. Sheftall has lived in Japan since 1987. He has a PhD in international relations and modern Japanese history from Waseda University in Tokyo. S…
August 4, 2026
Korean Messiah
Of the two Koreas, it is the South which appears much the more Christian today, with all major cities dotted with church spires and illuminated crosse…
August 4, 2026
The Land of Happiness
The Land of Happiness: How the Japanese Department Store Visualized Modern Life (MIT Press, 2026) explores the far-reaching influence of the Japanes…
August 1, 2026
City on Fire
John chats with writer and journalist Simon Elegant about his third novel, a crime thriller set during the Hong Kong protests of 2019. City on Fire is…
July 31, 2026
China’s Landless Peasants and the Role of State-led Rural Urbanization
As part and parcel of China’s compressed modernization, processes of state-led rural urbanization through land expropriation and rural-to-urban reloca…