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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:
October 1, 2026
Alone in Japan
Japan has been aging for decades. The country’s birth rate first fell below the replacement rate in 1974, long before phrases like the “demographic tr…
September 24, 2026
The New Geography of Innovation
Increasingly, it seems like the corporate names that dominate headlines are much more diverse than they used to be. Samsung, TSMC, and SK Hynix. Aliba…
September 17, 2026
To Rule All Under Heaven
The Warring States Period is one of the most important times in China’s history. It marked the end of one dynasty–the Zhou–and the beginning of a new …
September 10, 2026
On Thin Ice
In February 2022, British explorer Charlie Walker flew to Siberia's Sakha Republic to walk a thousand miles up frozen rivers to the Arctic Ocean, thro…
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…
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 20, 2026
Chapal Rani, the Last Queen of Bengal
Chapal Rani was one of India’s most famous performers of jatra, Bengal’s popular theater. Traditionally, all the roles, including female roles, were p…
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 6, 2026
Babylon, South Dakota
Today, we’re welcoming novelist Tom Lin back to the show, whose new novel Babylon, South Dakota (Little, Brown and Company: 2026) moves his fascinatio…
July 30, 2026
The Next China Is Still China
What’s going on in the Chinese economy? China reported GDP growth of just 4.3% last quarter. Consumption is sluggish, exports are booming, electronics…
July 23, 2026
The Arab Bureau
Many of us have watched the classic 1962 movie Lawrence of Arabia, the somewhat fictionalized work based on the life of T. E. Lawrence during the Arab…
July 16, 2026
The Man Who Stole the Gods
On June 10, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York returned two pieces of artwork to Cambodia: an Angkor statue and a sandstone lintel. It’s the l…
July 9, 2026
The Ryukyu Islands
Most people only know one of the Ryukyu Islands: the island of Okinawa, home to sandy beaches and one of the U.S.’s most important bases in Asia. Ther…
July 2, 2026
Mother of the World
Turkmenistan rarely makes international headlines–and when it did, it was often stories that highlighted things like the strange cult of personality t…
June 25, 2026
China's Mahan
In 2012, China debuted its first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, a refurbished Soviet-era ship from Ukraine. The debut of the Liaoning was largely tha…
June 18, 2026
The Moys of New York and Shanghai
The story of the Moy family—U.S.-born Chinese-American siblings who grow up in the first half of the 20th century—is one that spans the Pacific, cover…
June 11, 2026
The Shah's Party
In 1971, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi threw a party to celebrate the 2,500-year anniversary of the Persian Empire. It was planned to be a massive party,…
May 28, 2026
Stories We Wear
Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, is known for his outfits. Since rising to become India’s head of government in 2014, photographers and journali…
May 21, 2026
Safe Passage
In October 1943, the Gripsholm—a Swedish ocean liner—and the Teia Maru—a Japanese troop ship—sat in Mormugao, a port in Portuguese India. There, the t…
May 14, 2026
Pyongyang on the Brink
North Korea has survived wars, sanctions, and isolation—to the point where it now seems that the continuation of the Kim dynasty, and a starkly divide…
May 7, 2026
Worldly Afterlives
The British Empire covered much of the world during the 19th century–and each time someone moved through it, they left a paper trail in their wake. Ju…
April 30, 2026
King Dollar
The U.S. dollar is the world’s most important currency. Trade is priced in dollars, the world’s central banks keep U.S. dollars in reserve, some place…
April 23, 2026
Slavery and the Jews of Medieval Egypt
Slavery was a key part of pre-modern Islamic society, spanning from soldiers to concubines. And one of the most revealing repositories of evidence we …
April 16, 2026
Oxford Soju Club
Doha, a North Korean spymaster, is found stabbed in an alley in Oxford. Doha tells his mentee–another North Korean spy named Yohan—to go to the Oxford…