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About Nicholas Gordon
Nicholas Gordon is an associate editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon.
NBN Episodes hosted by Nicholas:
November 14, 2024
Ruth Vanita
A Slight Angle (India Viking: 2024), the newest novel from Indian writer Ruth Vanita, is a story about love. Difficult love–her six characters are gro…
November 7, 2024
Backstage in Hong Kong
Today, the Hong Kong Philharmonic is one of the world’s great symphony orchestras. But when John Duffus landed in Hong Kong in 1979 as the Philharmoni…
October 31, 2024
Beverly Hills Spy
Frederick Rutland—”Rutland of Jutland”—was a war hero, renowned World War I aviator…and a Japanese spy. In the years leading up to Pearl Harbor, Rutla…
October 24, 2024
Nehru's Bandung
In 1955, the leaders of 29 Asian and African countries flock to the small city of Bandung, Indonesia, for the first-ever Afro-Asian conference. India …
October 17, 2024
Hoof Beats
Which society was the first to domesticate the horse? It’s a difficult question. The archaeological record is spotty, with only very recent advancemen…
October 10, 2024
The Enclave
Maya, the protagonist of Rohit Manchanda’s novel The Enclave (Fourth Estate: 2024), should be happy with her life. She’s newly single, her net worth s…
October 3, 2024
From Pashas to Pokemon
From Pashas to Pokemon (Vishwakarma Publications, 2024), Maaria Sayed’s first novel, is a coming-of-age story. Aisha grows up in the Muhammad Ali Road…
September 26, 2024
The Great Reversal
In the sixteenth century, Queen Elizabeth I tried to send several letters to her Chinese counterpart, the Wan Li Emperor. The letters tried to ask the…
September 19, 2024
Target Hong Kong
On January 16, 1945, dozens of U.S. Navy aircraft took off for China’s southern coast, including the occupied British colony of Hong Kong. It was part…
September 12, 2024
The Good War of Consul Reeves
Macau was supposed to be a sleepy post for John Reeves, the British consul for the Portuguese colony on China’s southern coast. He arrived, alone, in …
September 5, 2024
Raiders, Rulers, and Traders
After reading David Chaffetz’s newest book, you’d think that the horse–not oil–has been humanity’s most important strategic commodity. As David writes…
August 29, 2024
God's Ashes
Climate change. The refugee crisis. The rise of social media. These big social questions—and others—inspired journalist Marga Ortigas in the creation…
August 22, 2024
Alexander at the End of the World
In 330 BC, Alexander the Great conquers the city of Persepolis, the ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire. His troops later burn it to the ground, …
August 14, 2024
Shanghailanders
Shanghailanders (Spiegel & Grau: 2024), the debut novel from Juli Min, starts at the end: Leo, a wealthy Shanghai businessman, sees his wife and daugh…
August 8, 2024
Silk, Silver, Spices, Slaves
Baseball’s introduction to the Philippines. The slot machine trade between Manila and Shanghai. A musical based extremely loosely on the life of the s…
August 1, 2024
Spice
The spice islands: Specks of land in the Indonesian archipelago that were the exclusive home of cloves, commodities once worth their weight in gold. T…
July 25, 2024
The Poisoner of Bengal
It’s the 1930s. Amarendra Chandra Pandey, the youngest son of an Indian prince, is about to board a train when a man bumps into him. Amarendra feels a…
July 18, 2024
A Danger Shared
Melville Jacoby was a U.S. war correspondent during the Sino-Japanese War and, later, the Second World War, writing about the Japanese advances from C…
July 11, 2024
The Story of Southeast Asia
Does Southeast Asia “exist”? It’s a real question: Southeast Asia is a geographic region encompassing many different cultures, religions, political st…
July 3, 2024
Chop Fry Watch Learn
In 1971, the New York Times called the Taiwanese-Chinese chef, Fu Pei-Mei, the “the Julia Child of Chinese cooking.” But, as Michelle T. King notes …
June 27, 2024
The Transpacific Flow
In 2009, Fudan University launched China’s first MFA program in creative writing, spurring a wave of such programs in Chinese universities. Many of th…
June 20, 2024
On the Shadow Tracks
In 2016, journalist Clare Hammond embarked on a project to study the railways of Myanmar–a transportation network that sprawls the country, rarely use…
June 13, 2024
Bankrolling Empire
Running and securing an empire can get expensive–especially one known for its opulence, like the Mughal Empire, which conquered much of northern India…
June 6, 2024
The Han-Xiongnu War, 133 Bc-89 Ad
For two centuries, the Xiongnu people–a vast nomadic empire that covered modern-day Siberia, Inner Mongolia, Gansu and Xinjiang—were one of the Han Dy…