Kristina Jonutytė, "Between the Buddha and the New Tsar: Urban Religion and Minority Politics at the Asian Borderlands of Russia" (Cornell UP, 2026)

Kristina Jonutytė, "Between the Buddha and th...

Up next

Avner Greif et al., "Two Paths to Prosperity: Culture and Institutions in Europe and China, 1000–2000" (Princeton UP, 2025)

It’s one of the biggest questions in economic history: How did a richer, more advanced China fall behind Europe? Why was Europe the home of the Industrial Revolution, and not China? And what does that journey tell us about politics and culture? In Two Paths to Prosperity: Culture ...  Show more

Jeffrey Wasserstrom, "Everything You Wanted to Know about China*: * But Were Afraid to Ask" (Brixton Ink, 2025)

What does Xi Jinping share with Mao Zedong? Why is Confucius still central to a communist state? What really happened in Tiananmen Square—and why is it still a taboo?In this accessible and politically astute primer Everything You Wanted to Know about China*: * But Were Afraid to ...  Show more

Recommended Episodes

Stevie Suan, "Anime's Identity: Performativity and Form Beyond Japan" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)
New Books in Popular Culture

A formal approach to anime rethinks globalization and transnationality under neoliberalism Anime has become synonymous with Japanese culture, but its global reach raises a perplexing question--what happens when anime is produced outside of Japan? Who actually makes anime, and how ...  Show more

Chrissy Yee Lau, "New Women of Empire: Gendered Politics and Racial Uplift in Interwar Japanese America" (U Washington Press, 2022)
New Books in the American West

This episode, which is co-hosted with Mika Thornburg, features a conversation with Dr. Chrissy Yee Lau, the author of the newly published New Women of Empire: Gendered Politics and Racial Uplift in Interwar Japanese America (U Washington Press, 2022). The book centers the compell ...  Show more

Susan Westhafer Furukawa, "The Afterlife of Toyotomi Hideyoshi: Historical Fiction and Popular Culture in Japan" (Harvard UP, 2022)
New Books in Popular Culture

Popular representations of the past are everywhere in Japan, from cell phone charms to manga, from television dramas to video games to young people dressed as their favorite historical figures hanging out in the hip Harajuku district. But how does this mass consumption of the pas ...  Show more

Paul Hansen, "Hokkaido Dairy Farm: Cosmopolitics of Otherness and Security on the Frontiers of Japan" (SUNY Press, 2024)
New Books in Anthropology

As an ethnography of a Japanese dairy farm while having theoretical values going beyond the specific context, Hokkaido Dairy Farm: Cosmopolitics of Otherness and Security on the Frontiers of Japan (SUNY Press, 2024) offers a historical and ethnographic examination of the rapid in ...  Show more