-
3 weeks ago | 
the-tls.co.uk | Jeffrey Wasserstrom |Miranda France |Keith Miller |J. E. Smyth
Linda Gordon is a unique figure in the field of US history. Since her Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right: A social history of birth control in America came out in 1976, she has produced several first-rate books, focusing predominantly on women’s experiences. She won the coveted Bancroft prize, awarded for books about American history or diplomacy, in 2000 and 2010. Her archival digging and stylish writing have inspired many historians, including some who, like me, don’t work on American history.
-
3 weeks ago | 
the-tls.co.uk | Miranda France |Keith Miller |Jeffrey Wasserstrom |J. E. Smyth
The comic strip Mafalda ran for less than ten years in Argentina (1964-1973), but in South America its eponymous protagonist is still revered both as a lovable cartoon character and as a symbol of resistance. Soon she will make the jump to Netflix.
-
3 weeks ago | 
the-tls.co.uk | J. E. Smyth |Miranda France |Keith Miller |Jeffrey Wasserstrom
The Northern Irish film-maker Mark Cousins has cultivated a wide and enthusiastic following among social media-minded cinephiles, but the whimsical documentarian’s penchant for beautifully narrated love letters to dead directors can be an acquired taste. Occasionally, he has made films shorter than two hours, but his best-known work remains The Story of Film (2011), which is fifteen hours long.
-
1 month ago | 
dissentmagazine.org | Nic Cavell |Han Zhang |Jeffrey Wasserstrom |David Bandurski
Gaokao Losers In China, academic competition has become a kind of faith, providing values and a sense of purpose to its acolytes. ▪ Spring 2025 Other Rivers: A Chinese Educationby Peter HesslerPenguin Press, 2024, 464 pp. In River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze, Peter Hessler explored the novelty of being a foreign teacher in Fuling, China, in the mid-nineties.
-
Jan 7, 2025 | 
prospectmagazine.co.uk | Jeffrey Wasserstrom
Many periodicals recently ran stories about Donald Trump’s second electoral victory leading to a burst of new sales for two old books: George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985). There was nothing unusual about the members of this dystopian duo showing up together in these reports, just as they had eight years earlier, the first time Trump headed to the White House.
-
Sep 12, 2024 | 
dissentmagazine.org | Nic Cavell |Jane Hu |Jake Werner |Jeffrey Wasserstrom
The Literature of Uyghur Disappearance Three recent books offer a searing portrait of the calculated brutality of the ongoing Uyghur genocide. ▪ Spring 2024 Waiting to Be Arrested at Night: An Uyghur Poet’s Memoir of China’s Genocideby Tahir Hamut Izgil, trans. by Joshua L. FreemanPenguin Press, 2023, 272 pp. The Backstreets: A Novel from Xinjiangby Perhat Tursun, trans. by Darren Byler and AnonymousColumbia University Press, 2022, 168 pp.
-
Sep 10, 2024 | 
insidehighered.com | Jeffrey Wasserstrom
You have /5 articles left. Sign up for a free account or log in. Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Courtesy of Jeffrey Wasserstrom | Mahka Eslami/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty ImagesA lot of scholars I know are historians based in the United States who work on cities that were either parts of the People’s Republic of China from the time it was founded in 1949 or became part of that country later, as Lhasa did in 1951 and Hong Kong did in 1997.
-
Jun 13, 2024 | 
chinabooksreview.com | Jeffrey Wasserstrom
What a prolonged dreadful dream! Who can tell it? It cannot be told, nor even imagined, but I will try to write something of our experiences. We kept getting into closer and closer quarters; the darkness thickened; still we kept hoping, looking, praying for our coming troops. … Some nights and days the firing has been most frightful. At first it was the Boxers who attacked us; now it is the armed Chinese soldiers with their small arms and large foreign guns.
-
Jun 4, 2024 | 
newlinesmag.com | Jeffrey Wasserstrom
When it comes to comedy, business and elections, it’s said that timing is everything. It’s also crucial when it comes to repression. The tragic transformation of Hong Kong, once defined by public spectacle, diversity of opinion and a cacophony of voices, into a place where only certain views and statements are allowed is a searing reminder of this. Some journalists and human rights organizations have described Hong Kong’s downward spiral as happening at lightning speed.
-
Jan 10, 2024 | 
dissentmagazine.org | Brian Hioe |Jeffrey Wasserstrom |David Bandurski
Taiwan’s Election Under China’s Shadow
The Democratic Progressive Party’s candidate is more conservative than his predecessor, but the best hope for progressive forces this Saturday is still a DPP victory.
▪ January 10, 2024
When Taiwanese people go to the polls this Saturday, cross-strait relations are not the only issue they will vote on. The midterm elections in 2022 hinged on questions of local administration, and the country faces numerous domestic challenges.
