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“The Last Emperor of China” by Paul French
For most readers and filmgoers, the emotional architecture of the final Qing court was built not by historians but by Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1987 visually intoxicating film The Last Emperor. It fixed certain ideas about the enigmatic emperor Puyi in the public imagination: a spectral figure wandering through a museum of vanished power, emotionally stunted, politically…
“Shanghai” by Michael Dillon
Both the subtitle of historian Michael Dillon’s new book Shanghai: The Story of China’s Most Dynamic City and its jaunty…
“The Steppe and Its Empire” by Michael Khodarkovsky
When Ivan the Terrible received the English ambassador Jerome Edward Horsey in 1580, he showed him the Kremlin’s treasury room,…
“Alone in Japan” by Tom Feiling
When Japan was first opened to widespread Western contact in the late 19th century, visitors saw it as a glimpse…
“The Editor” by Jennifer Lindsay
In 1819, Singapore came under the control of the English East India Company, under murky circumstances involving its rivalrous local…
“Exquisite Things and Strange Wonders” by Amir Khusraw Dihlavi
Classical Persian literature offers very few autobiographies. We tend to admire the works of great poets in that tradition, in this case Amir Khusraw, without knowing much about them as individuals. If Khusraw’s poems are like flowers, “Exquisite Things and Strange Wonders” shows the gardens where the flowers grew. Alyssa Gabbay’s fluid translation brings to…
“Fortress Besieged” by Qian Zhongshu
Born one year before the Republic of China, Qian Zhongshu was to become one of its most revered fictional chroniclers. The cast of Fortress Besieged—the only novel he ever completed—characters were to become stand-ins for a generation of the Republic’s fumbling (pseudo-)intellectuals. The novel follows one Fang Hung-chien, starting with his 1937 return from Europe…
“The Book of Damascus: A City in Short Fiction”
The Book of Damascus, an anthology of ten short stories and one non-fiction piece, gives English-speaking readers a chance to…
“Plant Lady” by Minyoung Kang
At first glance, Minyoung Kang’s new book, Plant Lady, might be mistaken for yet another addition to the Korean comfort…
“The Seekers of Deer Creek” by Thao Thai
Inter-War Paris was a mecca for artists from around the world, including East Asia and, in particular, the then French…
“Eyes of the Sky” by Syaman Rapongan
At just 45 square kilometers, Orchid (Lanyu) Island might be tiny but it is a completely different world from nearby…
“Exit 8” by Genki Kawamura
“Do not overlook any anomalies… If you find an anomaly, turn back immediately… If you do not find any anomalies, do not turn back… Go out through Exit 8”. Guided only by these cryptic instructions, the unnamed narrator of Genki Kawamura’s Exit 8 attempts to break free from an underground loop. Wandering through the same…
“Chinese Media Improvisations” by Xuenan Cao
Xuenan Cao offers an unexpected angle on China’s technological rise, spotlighting the role of deficit-driven improvisation. As Cao demonstrates, where printing paper, computers, and microchips have been in shortage, media…
“Stormy Seas” by Thung-Hong Lin
How can a small democracy resist the influence of a powerful authoritarian neighbor? Taiwan is frequently praised for its successful economic development and peaceful transition to democracy, serving as a…
“From Lab to Life: How AI Works in China” by Collin Hogue-Spears
From Lab to Life: How AI Works in China argues that China built the world’s first governed AI ecosystem, a market in which regulation, commercial capability, and distribution developed together. Since August 2023, China has required consumer-facing generative AI services to clear government filing before…
“Unraveling Threads” by Brenda Lin
A memoir-in-essays that, in its exploration of language, family ties, and Taiwanese history, distills how the handmade holds memory, inheritance, and the work of care-taking. “Tactile memory feels like it…
“Xiong Yanghe: Family, Military Career and Taijiquan Legacy” by Michael A DeMarco
Born in Jiangsu Province in 1889, Xiong Yanghe grew up on his family’s estate. His early decades were marked by warfare among various factions within China and devastating encroachments by…
“The Woven Image” by Yong Cho
East Asia’s Yuan Empire (1271–1368), led by the nomadic Mongol people and Qubilai Khan (1215–1294), was marked by cross-cultural exchange and significant developments in trade, technology, and infrastructure. The Mongol…
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