New Books in East Asian Studies

Marshall Poe

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies

  1. 1d ago

    Hiroshima's Last Witnesses and Japan's Nuclear Future

    M. G. Sheftall has lived in Japan since 1987. He has a PhD in international relations and modern Japanese history from Waseda University in Tokyo. Since 2001, he has been a professor of modern Japanese cultural history and communication at the Faculty of Informatics of Shizuoka University. He lives in Hamamatsu, Japan. Amy Chavez talks about Sheftall's books on the Asia Pacific War, in particular Hiroshima: The Last Witnesses and Nagasaki: The Last Witnesses both oral histories featuring interviews with survivors of the atomic bombs. Has Japan's 80 years of peace education been all for naught? The book serves as a prescient warning given the current political climate and Japan's complex relationships with the US, Taiwan, China, and the broader world. Recent developments—including Nihon Hidankyo's 2024 Nobel Peace Prize and the ongoing protests against revising Article 9—bring this subject into sharp focus. Against this backdrop, the author offers his own perspective on Japan's nuclear future. The Books on Asia Podcast is co-produced with Plum Rain Press. Podcast host Amy Chavez is author of The Widow, the Priest, and the Octopus Hunter: Discovering a Lost Way of Life on a Secluded Japanese Island, and Amy's Guide to Best Behavior in Japan. 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/east-asian-studies

  2. 5d ago

    Jonathan Cheng, "Korean Messiah: Kim Il Sung and the Christian Roots of North Korea’s Personality Cult" (Knopf, 2026)

    Of the two Koreas, it is the South which appears much the more Christian today, with all major cities dotted with church spires and illuminated crosses. But a century ago it was the northern half of the peninsula that was the more established home for Christianity, the northwestern city of Pyongyang being celebrated as a “Jerusalem of the East.” And among the faith’s devotees were the parents of the man who would eventually come to lead the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea from the middle of the twentieth century. Kim Il Sung, Jonathan Cheng shows in his fluidly written and richly researched book Korean Messiah: Kim Il Sung and the Christian Roots of North Korea’s Personality Cult (Knopf, 2026), grew up in an environment suffused in Christian teachings and actively involved himself in church life, facts which raise questions about his later career as a guerrilla fighter and national leader. Cheng traces the long arc of Christian associations in Kim’s biography, from the arrival of Presbyterianism in Korea through to the leader’s battles with the church as North Korean leader, his softening towards the faith in later life, and of course his erection of a personality cult around himself that had no few similarities with the practices and aesthetics of Christianity. Understanding North Korea from its founding until the present day thus, Cheng shows, demands an awareness of an at-times-astonishing collision of religion, nationalism and authoritarianism which are narrated expertly in this thought-provoking book. Jonathan Cheng professional web page here Book website here Ed Pulford is an Anthropologist and Senior Lecturer in Chinese Studies at the University of Manchester. His research focuses on friendships and histories between the Chinese, Korean and Russian worlds, and socialism and empire in Eurasia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies

  3. 5d ago

    Nozomi Naoi, "The Land of Happiness: How the Japanese Department Store Visualized Modern Life" (MIT Press, 2026)

    The Land of Happiness: How the Japanese Department Store Visualized Modern Life (MIT Press, 2026) explores the far-reaching influence of the Japanese department store on modern life and our imaginations. In this gorgeously illustrated volume, Dr. Nozomi Naoi explains how Japanese department stores modeled “the new modern Japanese life and identity” through print media and design, physical and imagined space, and the new experiences that these spaces offered. The stores created the notion of a modern subject enjoying a “land of happiness”—and this, in turn, shaped the wider sociological context, including emerging roles for women and perceptions of coloniality. The book focuses on three areas: the mediascape of proliferating department store posters, advertisements, commercial design, promotional magazines, and merchandise; the physical space, such as the Western-style architecture that characterized many of these early department stores, and the imagined “modern space” created within their walls; and, finally, the production of a novel “dreamworld,” which included dining spaces with children’s menus, new technology such as elevators and escalators, and more. Although the research on department stores and their role in the quotidian experience is vast, there is nothing like this study, which is uniquely grounded in an art-historical approach that draws on the visual media environment of early twentieth-century Japan and its impact on the everyday. 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/east-asian-studies

  4. Aug 1

    City on Fire: A Novel of Hong Kong with Simon Elegant

    John chats with writer and journalist Simon Elegant about his third novel, a crime thriller set during the Hong Kong protests of 2019. City on Fire is published by Pegasus Crime, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. The novel follows Inspector Killian Tong’s investigation of a brutal murder against a backdrop of political chaos, police tensions, and also personal conflict – Killian’s half-sister is a radical protester. John and Simon also discuss the background to the 2019 protests, including the National Security Law and the earlier 2014 Umbrella Movement. Among the books mentioned were: Manchu (1980) by Robert Elegant (a swashbuckling novel by Simon’s father). Gorky Park (1981) by Martin Cruz Smith Among the Braves: Hope, Struggle, and Exile in the Battle for Hong Kong and the Future of Global Democracy (2023) by Shibani Mahtani & Timothy McLaughlin Simon’s book recommendations The Immobile Empire (French 1989, English 1992) by Alain Peyrefitte. This is on the 1973 Macartney mission to Peking. Apple in China (2025) by Patrick McGee, which explores Apple’s deep entanglement with China’s manufacturing system. Ginkgo Season (2025) by Naomi Xu Elegant, a coming-of-age novel set in Philadelphia. To learn more about Simon Elegant and his novel, visit the publisher’s website here  The Books on Asia Podcast is co-produced with Plum Rain Press . Subscribe to the BOA podcast from your favorite podcast service. podcast service. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies

  5. Jul 31

    Anthony J. Barbieri-Low, "Parallel Journeys: Eurasian History Through Travelers’ Eyes (400 BCE–1936 CE)" (Cambria, 2025)

    Parallel Journeys: Eurasian History through Travelers’ Eyes (Cambria Press, 2026) is a comparative history of Eurasia told through travel writing and cross-cultural encounters. In this anthology, Anthony Barbieri pairs accounts from twenty-eight travelers across different historical periods, placing side-by-side travelers looking or going East with those looking or going West. Spanning from 400 BCE through to 1936, the anthology brings together ambassadors, monks, missionaries, merchants, and journalists in order to explore how people understood the cultures, societies, and worlds that they encountered through travel. Structured around these “parallel journeys,” the book highlights both similarities and differences in the ways travelers described foreign places and peoples. Some travelers used these encounters to criticize the societies they entered, while others turned outward observation into reflection on their own cultures. Across the anthology, travel writing emerges not simply as a way of describing a journey, but as a way of forging ideas about cultural difference, identity, religion, commerce, and political power. This anthology will appeal to readers interested in Eurasian history, travel writing, world literature, and cross-cultural exchange. It is also a flexible and engaging anthology perfect for classroom teaching, complete with both long and short versions of each account, helpful visuals, and contextual information — an excellent way to get students thinking about what it means to do comparison effectively. For another overview of the anthology, readers should check out Barbieri’s lecture “Beyond the Mountains and Seas,” available on YouTube here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies

  6. Jul 31

    Isabel Heger-Laube, "China’s Landless Peasants and the Role of State-led Rural Urbanization: Narratives, Meaning Making, and the Puzzle of Social Stability" (Würzberg UP, 2025)

    As part and parcel of China’s compressed modernization, processes of state-led rural urbanization through land expropriation and rural-to-urban relocation have been transforming rural Chinese people’s lives in unprecedented ways. This has led to different, often adverse outcomes for the affected populations – China’s “landless peasants” - as well as to the construction of divergent narratives about the role of the Chinese state’s measures for them. To provide a so-far missing perspective to existing research, Isabel Heger-Laube reconstructs the role of the experienced changes from landless peasants’ own narratives, drawing on the “big” and “small” stories collected through fieldwork in Huaming model town in Tianjin’s Dongli district. By focusing on ordinary people’s subjective processes of meaning making, this book not only puts into perspective objective assessments and persistent narrative tendencies, but also sheds new light on the puzzle of social stability in the wake of large-scale, state-led transformations in contemporary China. China’s Landless Peasants and the Role of State-led Rural Urbanization: Narratives, Meaning Making, and the Puzzle of Social Stability was published open access with Würzburg University Press in 2025. Free e-book version. Dr. Isabel Heger-Laube (isabelheger@gmail.com) is a sinologist and social scientist with an interdisciplinary footing in social anthropology, sociology, and psychology. She earned her PhD in Chinese Studies from Freie Universität Berlin in 2024 and currently works as a scientific associate at the School of Social Work, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW). Alongside her work, she is pursuing a degree in psychosocial counseling. Her research interests include urbanization and social change, higher and adult education, aging and care, as well as narrative meaning making and identity formation. ORCiD. 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/east-asian-studies

  7. Jul 30

    Joe Ngai and Nick Leung, "The Next China Is Still China: An Insider's Playbook for Winning in the New Era" (Scribner, 2026)

    What’s going on in the Chinese economy? China reported GDP growth of just 4.3% last quarter. Consumption is sluggish, exports are booming, electronics manufacturers and chipmakers are reporting huge profits as car sales slump. Joe Ngai and Nick Leung dive into the Chinese economy in their latest book The Next China Is Still China: An Insider's Playbook for Winning in the New Era (Scribner, 2026), which came out earlier this year. The book is motivated by a question many executives asked amid new U.S. tariffs and COVID-driven supply shocks: Is there another economy that can replace China’s massive consumer market and deep manufacturing base? The answer: No. Joe Ngai is a McKinsey senior partner and chairman of the firm’s offices in Greater China. Frequently seen on media such as CNBC and Bloomberg, he has been named one of Forbes China’s 100 Most Influential Chinese Leaders, and he has also appeared on Bloomberg Businessweek China’s “Person of the Year 2025” list. Nick Leung is a McKinsey senior partner and member of McKinsey’s global board of directors. He is also a lead-director of the McKinsey Global Institute, the firm’s independent research arm, where he directs research on macroeconomics, global trade, and geopolitics. 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/east-asian-studies

  8. Jul 30

    The Long Reach of the Strong Arm: Evolving Forms of Transnational Authoritarianism in Asia and Beyond

    How do authoritarian regimes silence critics across borders? And what are the repressive tools and strategies that authoritarian regimes use transnationally? In this episode we are joined by Arild Engelsen Ruud, Mubashar Hasan and Karin Zackari to discuss the role of digital surveillance, emotional blackmail, enforced family isolation, psychological harassment, and the imprisonment of relatives on fabricated charges by Asian authoritarian regimes seeking to control populations and narratives across borders. You can read more about the research discussed in this episode in the book The Long Reach of the Strong Arm: Evolving Forms of Transnational Authoritarianism, published by Springer. Arild Engelsen Ruud is Professor of South Asian Studies at the University of Oslo. Mubashar Hasan is an Adjunct Research Fellow at Western Sydney University. Karin Zackari Associate Senior Researcher at the School of Global Studies at the University of Gothenburg. Kenneth Bo Nielsen, your host, is an Associate Professor of Social Anthropology and the Director of the Centre for South Asian Democracy at the University of Oslo. The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the following academic partners: Asia Centre, University of Tartu (Estonia), Asian studies, University of Helsinki (Finland), Centre for Asian Studies, Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania), Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Turku (Finland), Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University (Sweden) and Centre for South Asian Democracy, University of Oslo (Norway). We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies

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About

This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/east-asian-studies

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