New Books in Chinese Studies

Pedagogies of Value: Marketing Foreign Goods in China (Berghahn,
2026) by Dr. Máximo Badaró explores how China is reshaping global
hierarchies of worth. Through ethnographic research among marketers,
consultants, and brokers who promote foreign goods in Shanghai, Beijing,
and beyond, this book investigates how value is taught, contested, and
transformed in everyday encounters. From luxury brands and consumer
ethnography to real estate, wine, and organic food, the book reveals how
foreign intermediaries attempt
to ‘educate’ Chinese consumers, only to confront shifting power
dynamics that challenge Western authority. Blending vivid narratives
with sharp analysis, this study argues that China has become a central
arena for reimagining the very meaning of value. 

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book
focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty
negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative
analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find
Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. 
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/chinese-studies

The life of Puyi, the last emperor of China, often feels like a spectacle—in no small part due to the 1987 Oscar-winning film The Last Emperor. Yet the true story being Puyi, as well as his wife, the empress Wanrong, is more complicated. Two foreigners were asked to tutor both Puyi and Wanrong: Reginald Johnston and Isabel Ingram, both of whom provide fresh insights into how China’s final emperor and empress lived their lives.

Historian Paul French draws upon these sources, and others, for his latest work: The Last Emperor of China: Twilight of the Forbidden City (St. Martin's Press, 2026) to tell a very different story about the life of Puyi and Wanrong: their marriage, the political shenanigans of the early Republic, and how Johnson and Ingram shaped the final chapter of the imperial court.

Paul is the author of many works of history, including Midnight in Peking, City of Devils, Destination Macao, Bloody Saturday: Shanghai’s Darkest Day, and Her Lotus Year: China, the Roaring Twenties, and the Making of Wallis Simpson

You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia.

Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/chinese-studies

John Ross chats with repeat guest Tim McGirk about Sima Qian (c. 145–86 BC), the Father of Chinese History. He earned this accolade for his monumental work, the Shiji (usually translated as Records of the Grand Historian). It covers more than two thousand years, from the legendary early emperors up to Emperor Wu, under whom Sima Qian lived and fell afoul. Sima Qian would use his history writing to criticize cruel leaders, most notably Qin Shi Huang, the despotic first emperor of China, who burned books and attacked the humanistic legacy of Confucius. The backstory of the Records is one of the great bibliographic tales of all time. And as McGirk explains, the man and his work were inspiration for his historical novel, The Wondrous Elixir of the Two Chinese Lovers.

Books discussed:

Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian (English translation by Burton Watson, Columbia University Press, 1961, 1993, 1996).

The Wondrous Elixir of the Two Chinese Lovers by Tim McGirk (Plum Rain Press, 2025)

Related episodes:

In BOA episode 53, John chatted with Tim about his Plum Rain Press novel The Wondrous Elixir of the Two Chinese Lovers. It weaves the story of archeological discoveries in modern-day Mexico with that of Xu Fu, a Taoist alchemist/priest sent to bring back the secret of immortality.

And in episode 65, John and Tim talked about Simon Winchester’s biography of Sinologist Joseph Needham, The Man Who Loved China.

The Books on Asia Podcast is co-produced with Plum Rain Press.

Subscribe to the BOA podcast from your favorite podcast service.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/chinese-studies

Infrastructural Urbanism in Contemporary China: Volunteering, Infrastructures and Civic Imaginations (Leiden University Press, 2026) examines
how Chinese citizens negotiate their everyday experiences with urban
spaces, improved city infrastructure, and an increasingly tight
surveillance regime through volunteering. This book asks how citizens
connect to city spaces where facilities for transit, culture, and
leisure have been substantially upgraded. Drawing on extensive research,
Ka-ming Wu investigates how citizens conduct volunteer activities that
not only promote party-state campaigns and engage with new urban spaces
and services, but also experiment with political, social, and cultural
rights, including advocating for the rights of people with disabilities
and promoting unofficial interpretations of national history.

The book argues that volunteering has become an urban practice
through which citizens navigate existing hierarchies of urban and rural
status, gender, age, and ability, while contesting top-down,
mega-event-driven urbanization. It situates Chinese everyday urbanism
within the context of China's hosting of multiple international events,
its expanding public and digital infrastructures, heightened party-state
control, and burgeoning digital activism. The book contributes to the
infrastructural turn in urban anthropology and the field of China
studies, offering a new understanding of urban rights and public access
in contemporary China.

NOTE: The book Ka-ming Wu mentioned in the interview is Stephen Graham’s Cities under Siege: The New Military Urbanism
(Verso, 2010).

Wu Ka-ming is Associate Professor in the Department of Cultural and
Religious Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, with courtesy
appointments in the Department of Anthropology and the Centre for China
Studies. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, her work is
interdisciplinary, situated at the intersection of cultural studies,
anthropology, China studies, and environmental humanities. She is the
author of Reinventing Chinese Tradition: The Cultural Politics of Late Socialism
(UIP 2015) and the co-author of Living with Waste (CUP 2017).

Yadong Li is an anthropologist-in-training. He is a PhD candidate of
Socio-cultural Anthropology at Tulane University. More details about his
scholarship and research interests can be found here.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/chinese-studies

In A Post-Liberal Peace: How Emergent Powers Are Reshaping Global Conflict Management (Cornell UP, 2026), Dr. Monalisa Adhikari shows how rising powers like India and China are reshaping global peace governance. Over recent decades, both countries have deepened engagement with institutions built on liberal principles, including those related to peacebuilding. Their growing role raises critical questions about how their approaches diverge from liberal models and their impact on the domestic politics of conflict-affected states.

Focusing on India and China's involvement in peace processes in Nepal and Myanmar, Dr. Adhikari demonstrates that these powers advance distinctive, state-centered programs that privilege regional stakeholders, stability, development, and pragmatism. Operating under conditions of "negotiated coexistence" with liberal peacebuilders, their initiatives neither fully align with nor openly contest existing actors, limiting cooperation while avoiding confrontation. This pluralized form of international engagement enables domestic elites to resist external pressures, producing hybrid peace orders that incorporate some liberal elements yet remain largely at the status quo—and often illiberal.

Rich with archival and interview evidence, A Post-Liberal Peace sheds light on alternative forms of peacebuilding and their on-the-ground effects in an increasingly multipolar world.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/chinese-studies