This week on Sinica I'm delighted to bring you a live conversation with writer Peter Hessler, recorded at Duke University's Nasher Auditorium in Durham, North Carolina on November 10, 2023. The event was sponsored by the Duke Middle East Studies Center and the Asian Pacific Studies Institute, and was titled "Modern Revolutions in Ancient Civilizations."
Peter, known for both his trilogy of books written in China — Rivertown, Oracle Bones, and Country Driving — as well as for his reporting for The New Yorker, talks about how his years in China gave him perspective when living in Cairo and writing about Egypt during the Arab Spring. His book on Egypt, The Buried: An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution, was made richer for me by the comparisons and contrasts with China threading throughout.
Special thanks to Griffin Orlando of the Middle East Study Center and Alex Nickley from the Asia Pacific Studies Institute, and Ralph Litzinger from Duke Anthropology.
6:27 – What Peter’s China experience brought to his writing on China — and vice-versa
9:45 – Contrasting the Chinese and Egyptian revolutions
18:37 – Revolution in thinking in Egypt and China
35:49 – Peter on his approach to the craft of reporting and writing
51:47 – Peter’s work in China as a longitudinal cohort study — and what it reveals so far
58:03 – A preview of Peter’s forthcoming book, Other Rivers
Recommendations:
Peter: Gerald Durrell, My Family and Other Animals is one of the books
Kaiser: Kenneth W. Harl’s book Empires of the Steppes: A History of the Nomadic Tribes Who Shaped Civilization.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
The best solution for Taiwan is no solution: Jude Blanchette and Ryan Hass argue for kicking the can down the road
China's push for RMB internationalization
A familiar drumbeat: Michael Mazarr on the run-up to the Iraq invasion and parallels with China
Special episode: The COVID lockdown protests, with David Moser and Jeremiah Jenne
Financial Times reporter Yuan Yang on China-Europe relations
Evan Feigenbaum on the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific region
New America President Anne-Marie Slaughter on balancing China competition and global imperatives
The 20th Party Congress postgame show with Damien Ma and Lizzi Lee
Grifter, chaos agent, or CCP spy? The New Yorker's Evan Osnos on Guo Wengui
Overreach and overreaction, with Susan Shirk
Podcasting The Prince: Sue-Lin Wong of The Economist on her Xi Jinping podcast
Legendary BBC presenter and China editor Carrie Gracie, live in London
A conversation with Minister Xu Xueyuan, Deputy Chief of Mission of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Washington
China in the Global South, with Eric Olander and Cobus van Staden
Surveillance State: Authors Josh Chin and Liza Lin on their new book on China's tech-enhanced social controls
Yuen Yuen Ang on Xi Jinping, the Party bureaucracy, and authoritarian resilience
Avoiding the China Trap, with Jessica Chen Weiss
Is China's bubble finally about to pop? A conversation with Bloomberg Chief Economist Tom Orlik
China's space program, with NASA astronaut Leroy Chiao
China and the American "great power opportunity," with Ali Wyne
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free