Happy to report that _Remaking the Earth, Exhausting the People_ is now on JSTOR thanks to the Path to Open program. @uwapress.uw.edu @acls1919.bsky.social @jstor.bsky.social www.jstor.org/stable/jj.36...

Among the greatest comedic turns in Hindi cinema. I can only imagine how much fun the entire cast must have had making this movie. Farewell Dharmendra! And thank you for the good times! www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFkZ...

New edited volume just dropped! Quantitative History of China: State Capacity, Institutions, and Development edited by Chen Zhiwu, myself, and Ma Debin is now able as a free PDF/ePub download. 1/2 link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Very happy to share an article that Arunabh Ghosh and I wrote for a special issue organized by Sara Lorenzini on "Dam Scientists." Much thanks to Sara for the invitation! Feel free to DM me for a copy. www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/...

New open access article! In "The Contradictions of Dam Building in the People's Republic of China," the authors examine tensions between the PRC's limited capacities and promethean visions of taming China's rivers in the mid-20th century. Read it here: www.doi.org/10.3828/whpe... #envhist 🗃️

Now OPEN ACCESS! @cfmeyskens.bsky.social and I wrote about "The Contradictions of Dam Building in the People's Republic of China." With thanks to @slorenzini.bsky.social for inviting us to a fun workshop in Trento and to being open to a co-authored article! doi.org/10.3828/whpe...

Next week, @sandipto.bsky.social speaking on his new book. polisci.mit.edu/events/2025/...

job alert: My department is now running a search to fill a newly inaugurated endowed chair in the History of Technology. Please consider applying/share widely. I'm not on the committee, but happy to answer questions or connect you with those who are. Details here: recruit.ap.uci.edu/JPF09897

Along the Imperial Spectrum, with Serkan Yolaçan, Ping-hsiu Lin, and Victoria Fomina: sites.lsa.umich.edu/cssh/2025/09...

CFP: New Perspectives in Environmental History-One Day Conference Yale University, February 28 (Saturday) Abstract submission deadline: Nov. 21 Details: environmentalhistory.yale.edu/programs/con...

Timely piece by Akshay Bhambri given latest "thaw". indianexpress.com/article/opin...

New record: The world’s most powerful wind turbine prototype has been installed. The dimensions of this are mind-boggling: With a blade wheel diameter exceeding 310m and hub height of 185m this turbine represents a significant leap forward in wind power technology. electrek.co/2025/08/29/c...

Excited to see the website is now live for my forthcoming book, The Future That Was: A History of Third World Feminism Against Authoritarianism (PUP, March 2026) press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

From colonial surveys to contemporary gem rushes: how do stones become valuable across geological time? First article from my PhD, "After Exploratory Geology: Gemological El Dorado in Global Afghanistan," now out in @csshjournal.bsky.social (open access!) doi.org/10.1017/S001...

The Cambridge Centre will be awarding a number of Prize Research Grants for the academic year 2025-2026. Applications are now open. Submission deadline is 4 September 2025. Click below for further information, eligibility and how to apply. www.histecon.magd.cam.ac.uk/prize.html

Proud to see Ping-hsiu Lin's article out now in @csshjournal.bsky.social! Open access too! doi.org/10.1017/S001... cc @harvard-jchs.bsky.social

Applications for the NCUSCR Public Intellectuals Program close in ten days! Learn more about how you can join the next generation of American China specialists by May 11, 2025: www.ncuscr.org/applications...

Today!!

The talk will be live streamed! Register here: harvard.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

The final @fairbankcenter.bsky.social Modern China Lecture of the AY will feature @joseph-w-ho.bsky.social, speaking on: Developing Mission: Photography, Filmmaking, and American Missionaries in Modern China April 21 @ 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm Details: fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/moder...

Half full or half empty: Solar rose 27% and gas rose 3% in 2024. Solar+wind now generates more power than coal, and overall GHG emissions from the power sector went up. ember-energy.org/latest-insig...

Walter Johnson and Vince Brown in the Crimson today. www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Ram Guha on Sunil Amrith's latest book. www.theindiaforum.in/book-reviews...

Today!

The @fairbankcenter.bsky.social Modern China Lecture is back online! Tomorrow (3/4) at 4 PM: Famine and Rebellion: The Counterrevolutionary Case of the Chinese People’s Life-Saving Army in the Western Stream Villages, 1959-1960 Chen Yixin (NCU Wilmington) tinyurl.com/2y87jcp5

"...the ‘policy paralysed’ Manmohan Singh’s 2009-2014 term recorded 3,175 deportations while the Vishwaguru Narendra Modi’s 2019-2024 term recorded more than double that number at 7,583 deportations. Amritkaal it was indeed." My dad's latest in @thewire.in. m.thewire.in/article/dipl...

Pleased to share a new article on work points, part of an @isisjournal.bsky.social Focus Section on the "Global Life Histories of Numbers," edited by Andrea Bréard. "Work Points in the People’s Republic of China, 1950s to the 1980s." doi.org/10.1086/734001

Just came across this, and was reminded of Leo Breiman's classic essay in Statistical Science, now over two decades old. Statistical Modeling: The Two Cultures www.jstor.org/stable/2676681

Ravish Kumar interviews Amartya Sen at Pratichi. youtu.be/xXILL-KEEoc?...

I am grateful and amazed to get such early, generous praise for my #FranklinStove book from the likes of @amitav.bsky.social @kawulf.bsky.social @charlescmann.bsky.social Alan Taylor, Stacy Schiff, and Philip Deloria. Pinching myself

About a year and half ago, @sandeeppai.bsky.social , Suravee Nayak, Sree Harica and I started putting together a review article for WIRES Climate Change on India's complicated relationship with its coal industry.

CSSH is excited to join @bsky.app! Because sometimes, X doesn't mark the spot..... Don't miss our latest issue, with articles grouped under the rubrics: Questioning Dualism; Spatial Projects; Nation “Building”; and Anticipatory Expertise. sites.lsa.umich.edu/cssh/2025/02...

This Wednesday at the @fairbankcenter.bsky.social! @tonglam.bsky.social speaking on Extractivism and China's early Cold War Mobilization. Details here: fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/moder...

Re-upping this, now that it is has a volume (67) and an issue (1) number.

My dad writing in @thewire.in on the return of Trump. thewire.in/world/donald... "There is little new in Donald Trump’s slogans such as ‘America First’ or ‘Make America Great Again (MAGA)’...Any reading of America’s history...would show that every American president...sponsored these goals."

I'm excited to announce a new 2-year postdoctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins to advance research in historical & contemporary intersections of empire, migration, & racial hierarchy and help support our new major Critical Diaspora Studies. Pls share! apply.interfolio.com/162692

Admissions rant: Schools should should get rid of the academic performance metric in Letters of Rec. Letter writers clearly don't take it seriously. Almost every file I have read this year (nearly 200 in all) has a top 2% billing, which is a statistical impossibility.

Why is it so important to focus on "super-pollutants", like methane? "They are responsible for around 45% of global warming to date, as well as millions of premature deaths each year." More from @carbonbrief.org: www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-h...

Pleased to share the Spring 2025 lineup for the @fairbankcenter.bsky.social Modern China Lecture Series. All talks in-person at 4 PM EST. Recordings, when the speaker permits, will be made available on YouTube.

Studying China in the Absence of Access: Rediscovering a Lost Art From the team at SAIS. See link for PDF. scgrc.sais.jhu.edu/publications/

Looking forward to the first @fairbankcenter.bsky.social Modern China Lecture of the spring, featuring @tonglam.bsky.social. Let the Ore Speak: Extractivism and China’s Early Cold War Mobilization Wednesday, February 5, 4 PM EST Details: fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/moder...

Faced with an overwhelming vote by its members to condemn scholasticide in Palestine, the American Historical Association council has vetoed the resolution. Entirely in character for an organization that’s long been useless, but still galling

Back in Beijing after a long long time.

The University of Glasgow History Department has just advertized a tenure track position in early modern and modern Asian history with a strong interest in Chinese and East Asian history: www.jobs.gla.ac.uk/job/lecturer...

Here is a statement by my colleague Katherine Franke about the end of her time teaching at Columbia. Please read it. drive.google.com/file/d/1i4cO...

Shadi kab hai?

"The soft Hindutva trappings of AAP includes the bogey of a ‘sudden spurt’ in the number of illegal Bangladeshis in Delhi presumably pointing to the disturbed situation in Bangladesh. But there is little evidence...to suggest any such trend." thewire.in/politics/spo...