Confessions of a Lifelong China Watcher

Looking back on China’s dramatic recent history, from the devastation of the Great Leap Forward to today’s exuberant “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” is a fascinating exercise. China Watcher offers the rare opportunity to learn this history as author Richard Baum did — from the front row

Olematonta etsimässä

Richard Baum ja William Sheenan: Vulkanus – suuri planeetanmetsästys (alkuteos: In Search of Planet Vulcan – the Ghost in Newton's Clockwork Universe), suomentanut Markus Hotakainen, Art House, nid., 336 s

Focal Spot, Winter 1972

https://digitalcommons.wustl.edu/focal_spot_archives/1004/thumbnail.jp

Touring with a Book (vs. Touring with a Band)

My “book tour,” which has had me adding a lot of miles to my frequent flyer account,has finally started winding down. I’ve got some things still to come, including an upcoming event in this area with Ian Johnson in June and then during the summer some book-related talks across the Pacific, including several Shanghai gigs (details to follow in a future post) and a July 24 presentation at the Suzhou branch of the Bookworm bookstore, and so on. Still, the pace has slowed down, which put me in a reflective mood and gave me time to finish writing a piece that had been forming in my mind since the start of the tour. It explores the contrasts (but also parallels) between touring with a band (something I grew up thinking I’d do some day, but have never done) and touring with a book. If you are interested in seeing the results of my ruminations on this theme, you can find them at the Huffington Post, with an accompanying slide shows made up of three of my own photos and two great shots they came up with to illustrate my “top 5 list” of parallels

Touring with a Book (vs. Touring with a Band)

My “book tour,” which has had me adding a lot of miles to my frequent flyer account,has finally started winding down. I’ve got some things still to come, including an upcoming event in this area with Ian Johnson in June and then during the summer some book-related talks across the Pacific, including several Shanghai gigs (details to follow in a future post) and a July 24 presentation at the Suzhou branch of the Bookworm bookstore, and so on. Still, the pace has slowed down, which put me in a reflective mood and gave me time to finish writing a piece that had been forming in my mind since the start of the tour. It explores the contrasts (but also parallels) between touring with a band (something I grew up thinking I’d do some day, but have never done) and touring with a book. If you are interested in seeing the results of my ruminations on this theme, you can find them at the Huffington Post, with an accompanying slide shows made up of three of my own photos and two great shots they came up with to illustrate my “top 5 list” of parallels

A New Book (Almost in the Bookstores) and Some Boston to Boulder Speaking Dates

Back when the “China Beat” was in its infancy (figuring that blog years should be reckoned like dog years, it is now solidly in its adolescence), those of us involved in launching it thought that a fair amount of its content might well end up taking the form of “Self-Promotion Saturday” posts (shamelessly touting activities we’d been involved in) or “Coming Distractions” reviews (discussions of books that were about to appear, films that were in the works, upcoming conferences, etc.). Thankfully, the content has turned out to be much more varied, so these two features have only made up a small part of the total postings. Still, they continue to have a place at the blog, and this post is a combination of the two