Next week I'll be part of an event up at UCLA www.international.ucla.edu/burkle/event...

Paul Kreitman on important new books on Taiwan (by Chris Horton) & Hong Kong (by Ching Kwan Lee) lareviewofbooks.org/article/ghos...

"'It’s precisely the analysis Silicon Valley and Washington need as it oscillates between China envy and China fear." Afra Wang on "Breakneck" and "I Deliver Parcels in Beijing": https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/china-us-competition-engineering-dan-wang-hu-anyan/

John Dower cooking on the Enola Gay controversy

Huge thanks to @asiasociety.org Orville Schell and @foreignaffairs.com for this long and wonderful new review of my book The Party's Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/mise...

Great cover! I’m really delighted to be a part of this, much thanks to @mmuscolino.bsky.social

Check out the UWP website for more info: uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295...

lareviewofbooks.org/article/can-... "WE NEED King Lear to understand Chinese history, and we need Chinese history to understand King Lear. This is the bold, opening premise of literary scholar Nan Z. Da’s extraordinary new Princeton University Press book, The Chinese Tragedy of King Lear."

First time I’ve had a book reviewed in @foreignaffairs.com so especially pleased by having this short take on The Milk Tea Alliance www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/milk... to go with earlier ones in Cha, The Inside Story, & @newstatesman1913.bsky.social www.newstatesman.com/culture/book...

Yes, please join! Discord could be really useful for the community

I wrote for @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social on Palantir, the chip industry, US-China competition, and what tech firms mean when they talk about "defending Western civilization." Thanks to @jwassers.bsky.social, @bspivey.bsky.social, and the LARB team for the edits! lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-...

Here's my recent talk at CIW about how a Maoist approach to "environmental protection" emerged during the Cultural Revolution--an important period wherein many leaders and people began to seriously think about and grapple with the externalities of industrialization. www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfpC...

So grateful to write for @dissentmag.bsky.social's Fall 2025 issue "Authoritarianism and Resistance." I drafted the piece in June with the new school year in mind, as an immigrant scholar severed from her homeland: What can we teach the young about how to exist and persist at this historic juncture?

Weekly Wanderings returns after a late-summer hiatus, with new book recommendations, lots of China links, interesting stories from around the world, and Tiya Miles on searching for the right words.

From Sanmenxia and Three Gorges to the Yarlung Tsangpo Dam, China has long relied on monumental hydropower to prove state capacity. @zenel25.bsky.social and @pguer.bsky.social show how such projects, while promising development and security, often deepen the very insecurities they claim to resolve.

Sad news 😔 www.crikey.com.au/2025/09/04/m...

A new essay from me synthesizing the rich body of media criticism in Japanese focused on the practice of "August journalism" (八月ジャーナリズム): the tendency for rehearsed, compressed, and hollowed-out coverage of war memory each August. apjjf.org/2025/9/fedman

I've given talks about my new @columbiagr.bsky.social book at various places (including in Culver City at @wendemuseum.bsky.social), but this October 20 dual book launch with Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow at @ucirvine.bsky.social will be my first in Orange County www.humanities.uci.edu/events/art-i...

Looking forward to giving my first talks ever in the Netherlands October 22-24, first link up is for one I'll give in The Hague (sponsored by the University of Leiden's Asia Centre) on the 23rd: leidenasiacentre.nl/event/jeffre... cc @hvistendahl.bsky.social @krishraghav.bsky.social

🥹 Can't ask for a better review by @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social: "A stunning tale of government violence, organized protest, and radical hope... In its depiction of commitment, cowardice, and change, You Must Take Part in Revolution proves both heartbreaking and heartening." 🔗 bit.ly/larb-revolution

What did "environmental protection" 环境保护 mean in the Cultural Revolution? How did revolutionary Maoists approach pollution and other environmental problems caused by industrialization? 🇨🇳 🏭 ♻️ Talking about this on Thu 18 Sept, 4–5:30pm @ CIW (Canberra) (in person, recording later) shorturl.at/MIDTs

Happy to be recognized as a finalist for the @washingtonmonthly.com's Kukula Ward for my review of @ewong.bsky.social's At the Edge of Empire. Sincere thanks @jwassers.bsky.social, @bspivey.bsky.social, and @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social Read the Review 👇 lareviewofbooks.org/article/stra...

Love the look of the @cwclub.bsky.social Bookstore, my talk here begins in 20 minutes

CIW is hiring two more multiyear postdocs. I'm loving it here and highly recommend for those interested to apply. Great place with great people and lots of support for research. Deadline is July 30 🦘 jobs.anu.edu.au/jobs/postdoc...

Was pleased to write this review of the second edition of @jwassers.bsky.social’s “Vigil: The Struggle for Hong Kong,” published in January. It’s a great book that’s only gained importance since its first publication in 2020. Read the review online here: chajournal.blog/2025/07/11/v...

On the contingency of history - writing in LA Review of Books.

lareviewofbooks.org/article/ther... @drjanehayward.bsky.social "Finally, at a time when China’s rise must seem, to many, to have been inevitable, both books serve well to remind us of the contingency of history and the opaqueness of the future when viewed from the present."

In recent months, we have lost a significant portion of our funding. Yet we remain committed to helping the world better understand China at this critical juncture in global politics. We are asking for your help to keep our websites up and running. giving.chinadigitaltimes.net/page/serverc...

What I got ✨

Very excited that I just saw a 50% leap after Saturday’s West Coast launch in the number of people the Good Reads site lists reading The Milk Tea Alliance www.goodreads.com/book/show/22... /okay, it went from 2 on Saturday to 3 on Monday but phrasing it in terms of percentages sounds more impressive

A review of my book Chinese Characters Across Asia has come out in the LA Review of Books, alongside Uluğ Kuzuoğlu’s Codes of Modernity: Chinese Scripts in the Global Information Age. lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-...

Review of two books on post-Mao China, The Great Transformation by Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian, and China’s Age of Abundance by Wang Feng. Thank you to @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social for the invitation! lareviewofbooks.org/article/ther...

Interesting (and discouraging) example of how PRC desperation to whitewash their policies in Xinjiang hurts its international relations and makes it harder for those trying to maintain engagement with China. A 🧵regarding Princeton Press' trip to Xinjiang:

It seems a small thing, but a first academic citation is very gratifying--particularly when put in service of an important book like @josephtorigian.bsky.social's bio of Xi Zhongxun (www.sup.org/books/histor...) (my article on Uyghur student protests in the 80s: read.dukeupress.edu/journal-of-a...)

It was a great honor to share my thoughts at some length on how the landscape of U.S.-China relations looks to me now, especially through the prism of academic exchange, as part of the @scmpnews.bsky.social Open Questions interview series:

Last Friday afternoon in DC, I got a chance to share a stage w/ @eosnos.bsky.social (always a pleasure) to talk about my new book on resistance and repression in Asia and many other subjects, from our past collaborations to the challenges of writing about Xi Jinping www.youtube.com/watch?app=de...

I had a lot of fun reviewing the new Hsu-Tang Library Project. Indebted to @jwassers.bsky.social and Brian Spivey for their trust and help with getting it in shape. We do pretty cool work. Let's talk about it in public venues too. #chineseliterature #premodernchinese #sinology

Excellent review from @laujessie.bsky.social !

I'll speak at Luther College (Iowa) on April 16 www.luther.edu/event/youth-... (really love the eye-catching poster below that students there came up with for it!), I'll also do a session for there on writing about history & contemporary issues the next morning www.luther.edu/event/studen...

Elizabeth Keith (1887-1956). 'The Forbidden City Wall, Peking', c.1920s

Glad to see The Seed of the Sacred Fig getting this attention. Easily the best movie about authoritarian politics in years. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/w...

This Friday at UCI in person & everywhere via live stream, Dean Baquet keynote on “Crisis in the Newsroom,” then response from a stellar panel moderated by @amywilentz.bsky.social & then a full day of in person events Saturday, details here sites.uci.edu/factsunderfi...

*The Milk Tea Alliance: Inside #Asia's Struggle against Autocracy and Beijing* @columbiagr.bsky.social, forthcoming, June 2025. @jwassers.bsky.social gave a fascinating talk on this project at @fairbankcenter.bsky.social last month. indiepubs.com/products/the...

Very cool to see my "Xi Jinping’s Russian Lessons" on the @foreignaffairs.com Editors' Best of 2024, along with work by @zoe-liu.bsky.social @radchenko.bsky.social Audrey Kurth Cronin and others www.foreignaffairs.com/lists/best-2...

My book, “Making Mao’s Steelworks,” is now available online via Cambridge Core. doi.org/10.1017/9781...

🧵"The question of cultural survival haunts Patigül’s * #Bloodline*《 #百年血脉》 (2015). "The novel situates the narrator—who, like the author, is half- #Uyghur and half- #Hui —within the matrix of the #Han majority’s aggressive promotion of #Chinese: . . ." 1/