Tim O'Connell
Tim O'Connell is a China trader turned writer and historian who has lived in Hong Kong and Beijing since 1981.
The East, the West, and Sex: A History of Erotic Encounters by Richard Bernstein
TIM O'CONNELL | 26 December 2009When in 2006 a Shanghai-based English teacher dubbing himself ChinaBounder posted an internet blog bragging about the ease and extent of his sexual conquests, he ignited a storm of nationalistic outrage. "Let our compatriots act together on this Internet hunt to find this foreign trash until we kick him out of China," urged one... [ more ]
The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia -- and How It Died by Philip Jenkins
TIM O'CONNELL | 04 June 2009That history is written by the winners is as true of religious history as any other. Most modern Christians trace the explosive growth of their faith to the 4th century conversion of the Roman emperor Constantine. He famously standardized the creed at the Council of Nicaea, hitched Christianity's fortunes to a series of European empires, and left a number of obscure "eastern heresies" to wither on stony ground. In THE LOST HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY: THE THOUSAND-YEAR GOLDEN AGE OF THE CHURCH IN THE MIDDLE EAST, AFRICA, AND ASIA -- AND HOW IT DIED,... [ more ]
Macao's Church of Saint Paul: A Glimmer of the Baroque in China by Cesar Guillen Nunez
TIM O'CONNELL | 02 May 2009Each year, thousands of tourists climb the 66 finely-carved granite steps of the Ruins of St. Paul, to be photographed before the mount's striking church facade, the Eiffel Tower of Macao. But other than its vague Jesuit origins, what do most visitors really know about the site, its architectural significance... [ more ]
City of Heavenly Tranquility: Beijing in the History of China by Jasper BeckerThe Last Days of Old Beijing: Life in the Vanishing Backstreets of a City Transformed by Michael Meyer
TIM O'CONNELL | 24 November 2008The 1960 Rome Olympic Games were judged a triumph, at the time, but half a century later the Italian people came to rue them as among the worst acts of cultural vandalism in the nation's history. For in the decade before the Games, in secret and without public consultation, an insecure and autocratic government laid plans to bulldoze 95% of the ancient capital to rubble, discarding all property rights and regulations while... [ more ]
The Forbidden City by Geremie R. Barme
TIM O'CONNELL | 08 October 2008Mao's portrait may decorate Tiananmen Gate and his waxy corpse repose nearby, but Beijing's 20th-century conqueror famously declined to enter and associate himself with "The Great Within" of the Ming and Qing emperors, contenting himself with a walk along its crenellated perimeter walls. The Chairman understood the enduring metaphorical power of this decaying but still awe-inspiring relic of the dynastic past. In THE FORBIDDEN CITY,... [ more ]
Chinese Dress: From the Qing Dynasty to the Present by Valery Garrett
TIM O'CONNELL | 14 July 2008Generation gaps are a fact of 20th and 21st century life, but nowhere have they been as wide or frequent as in China, where nearly every decade has seen society remade to an astonishing extent. One area through which these enormous changes can be traced is clothing: from dragon robes to cheongsams, Mao suits to Dior, garments tell the story of China's modern history.
The Story of a Stele: China's Nestorian Monument and Its Reception in the West, 1625-1916 by Michael Keevak
TIM O'CONNELL | 05 June 2008Nearly everyone has heard the story of how China's terracotta warriors were stumbled upon during the sinking of a well. Largely forgotten is that this was not the first time Xian's laborers accidentally created a worldwide sensation by putting slipper to spade. The discovery in 1625 of what became known as the Nestorian Monument attracted minimal interest in China but became a centuries-long obsession for Europeans. In... [ more ]
Imperial Masquerade: The Legend of Princess Der Ling by Grant Hayter-Menzies
TIM O'CONNELL | 04 May 2008By the time of her death in 1944, hurrying to a Berkeley classroom, the pleasant-looking Chinese teacher attracted no special attention, least of all from the grocery van driver who ran her down. But hers had been a remarkable life, and not just because she had once been a teenage lady-in-waiting tiptoeing into the bedroom of the notorious Empress Dowager Cixi. For the self-styled Princess Der Ling had made the disorienting... [ more ]
