Best Eric Feng Podcasts (2024)

1
Roger Crowley, "Spice: The 16th-Century Contest that Shaped the Modern World" (Yale UP, 2024) 54:31

13m ago54:31

54:31

The spice islands: Specks of land in the Indonesian archipelago that were the exclusive home of cloves, commodities once worth their weight in gold. The Portuguese got there first, persuading the Spanish to fund expeditions trying to go the other direction, sailing westward across the Atlantic. Roger Crowley, in his new book Spice: The 16th-Century…

1
Dan Morrison, "The Poisoner of Bengal: The 1930s Murder That Shocked the World" (Juggernaut, 2024) 46:08

13m ago46:08

46:08

It’s the 1930s. Amarendra Chandra Pandey, the youngest son of an Indian prince, is about to board a train when a man bumps into him. Amarendra feels a prick; he then boards the train, worried about what it portends. Just over a week later, Amarendra is dead—of plague. India had not had a case of plague in a dozen years: Was Amarendra’s death natura…

1
Bill Lascher, "A Danger Shared: A Journalist’s Glimpses of a Continent at War" (Blacksmith Books, 2024) 52:09

1h ago52:09

52:09

Melville Jacoby was a U.S. war correspondent during the Sino-Japanese War and, later, the Second World War, writing about the Japanese advances from Chongqing, Hanoi, and Manila. He was also a relative of Bill Lascher, a journalist–specifically, the cousin of Bill’s grandmother. Bill has now collected Mel’s work in a book: A Danger Shared: A Journa…

1
Eric Thompson, "The Story of Southeast Asia" (NUS Press, 2024) 1:08:52

2d ago1:08:52

1:08:52

Does Southeast Asia “exist”? It’s a real question: Southeast Asia is a geographic region encompassing many different cultures, religions, political styles, historical experiences, and languages, economies. Can we think of this part of the world as one cohesive “place”? Eric Thompson, in his book The Story of Southeast Asia (NUS Press: 2024), sugges…

1
Michelle T. King, "Chop Fry Watch Learn: Fu Pei-Mei and the Making of Modern Chinese Food" (Norton, 2024) 45:41

9d ago45:41

45:41

In 1971, the New York Times called the Taiwanese-Chinese chef, Fu Pei-Mei, the “the Julia Child of Chinese cooking.” But, as Michelle T. King notes in her book Chop Fry Watch Learn: Fu Pei-Mei and the Making of Modern Chinese Food (Norton, 2024), the inverse–that Julia Child was the Fu Pei-Mei of French cuisine–might be more appropriate. Fu spent d…

1
Jin Feng, "The Transpacific Flow: Creative Writing Programs in China" (Association for Asian Studies, 2024) 39:42

16d ago39:42

39:42

In 2009, Fudan University launched China’s first MFA program in creative writing, spurring a wave of such programs in Chinese universities. Many of these programs’ founding members point to the Iowa Writers Workshop and, specifically, its International Writers Program, which invited dozens of Mainland Chinese writers to take part between 1979 and 2…

1
Clare Hammond, "On the Shadow Tracks: A Journey Through Occupied Myanmar" (Allen Lane, 2024) 30:59

24d ago30:59

30:59

In 2016, journalist Clare Hammond embarked on a project to study the railways of Myanmar–a transportation network that sprawls the country, rarely used and not shown on many maps, and often used at the pleasure of the country’s military. In her book On the Shadow Tracks; A Journey Through Occupied Myanmar (Allen Lane: 2024), Clare travels the lengt…

1
Sudev Sheth, "Bankrolling Empire: Family Fortunes and Political Transformation in Mughal India" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 52:36

1M ago52:36

52:36

Running and securing an empire can get expensive–especially one known for its opulence, like the Mughal Empire, which conquered much of northern India before rapidly declining in the eighteenth century. But how did the Mughals get their money? Often, it was through wealthy merchants, like the Jhaveri family, who willingly—and then not-so-willingly–…

1
Scott Crawford, "The Han-Xiongnu War, 133 BC-89 AD: The Struggle of China and a Steppe Empire Told Through Its Key Figures (Pen & Sword, 2023) 44:59

2M ago44:59

44:59

For two centuries, the Xiongnu people–a vast nomadic empire that covered modern-day Siberia, Inner Mongolia, Gansu and Xinjiang—were one of the Han Dynasty’s fiercest rivals. They raided the wealthy and prosperous Chinese, and even forced the Han to treat them as equals—much to the chagrin of those in the imperial court. There’s not much known abou…

1
Gary J. Bass, "Judgement at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia" (Knopf, 2023) 49:21

1M ago49:21

49:21

In December 1948, a panel of 12 judges sentenced 23 Japanese officials for war crimes. Seven, including former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, were sentenced to death. The sentencing ended the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, an over-two-year-long trial over Imperial Japan’s atrocities in China and its decision to attack the U.S. But u…

1
Peter Harmsen, "Bernhard Sindberg: The Schindler of Nanjing" (Casemate, 2024) 36:39

2M ago36:39

36:39

In December 1937, Bernhard Sindberg arrives at a cement factory outside of Nanjing. He’s one of just two foreigners, and he gets there just weeks before the Japanese invade and commit the now infamous atrocities in the Chinese city. As the writer Peter Harmsen notes, Bernhard’s background isn’t particularly compelling: He’s bounced from job to job,…

1
Rajrishi Singhal, "Slip, Stitch and Stumble: The Untold Story of Financial Reforms in India" (Viking, 2024) 47:02

2M ago47:02

47:02

India’s stock markets are booming. One calculation from Bloomberg puts India as the world’s fourth-largest equity market, overtaking Hong Kong, as domestic and foreign investors pile into the Indian stock exchange. But getting to the point where India’s stock markets—and its financial system more broadly—could work effectively took a long time. As …

1
Jeremy Garlick, "Advantage China: Agent of Change in an Era of Global Disruption" (Bloomsbury, 2023) 43:54

2M ago43:54

43:54

China’s rise to global prominence is a pretty good contender for the most important world development in the past 30 years. But now the question is how Beijing managed to be successful on the international stage–let alone how large that success is—with fierce debates between hawks and doves in the West and elsewhere. Jeremy Garlick tries to offer a…

1
Katie Gee Salisbury, "Not Your China Doll: The Wild and Shimmering Life of Anna May Wong" (Dutton, 2024) 46:21

2M ago46:21

46:21

In 2022, the U.S. Mint released the first batch of its American Women Quarters series, celebrating the achievements of U.S. women throughout its history. The first set of five included Maya Angelou, Sally Ride…and Anna May Wong, the first Asian-American to ever appear on U.S. currency. Katie Gee Salisbury takes on Anna May Wong’s life in her book N…

1
Mukund Padmanabhan, "The Great Flap of 1942: How the Raj Panicked over a Japanese Non-invasion (Vintage Books, 2024) 31:16

3M ago31:16

31:16

In April 1942, at least half a million people fled the city of Madras, now known as Chennai. The reason? The British, after weeks of growing unease about the possibility of a Japanese invasion, finally recommended that people leave the city. In the tense, uncertain atmosphere of 1942, many people took that advice to heart–and fled. The Japanese, of…

1
Jonathan Chatwin, "The Southern Tour: Deng Xiaoping and the Fight for China's Future" (Bloomsbury, 2024) 51:09

3M ago51:09

51:09

Deng Xiaoping’s 1992 Southern Tour has become a milestone in Chinese economic history. Historians and commentators credit Deng’s visit to Guangzhou Province for reinvigorating China’s market reforms in the years following 1989—leading to the Chinese economic powerhouse we see today. Journalist Jonathan Chatwin follows Deng’s journey in The Southern…

1
Robert D. Kaplan, "The Loom of Time: Between Empire and Anarchy, from the Mediterranean to China" (Random House, 2023) 30:02

4M ago30:02

30:02

The Middle East remains one of the world’s most complicated, thorny—and, uncharitably, unstable—parts of the world, as countless headlines make clear. Internal strife, regional competition and external interventions have been the region’s history for the past several decades. Robert Kaplan—author, foreign policy thinker, longtime writer on internat…

1
Kyokutei Bakin, "Eight Dogs, Or Hakkenden: Part Two--His Master's Blade" (Cornell UP, 2024) 38:02

3M ago38:02

38:02

Glynne Walley, translator of classic Japanese novel Hakkenden, joins us on the podcast again to talk about his second translated volume: Hakkenden, Part 2: His Master’s Blade (Cornell East Asia Series: 2024). Unlike Part 1—which is all preamble!—in Part 2 we meet some of the fabled eight dog warriors and the Confucian virtues they represent: Shino,…

1
David Veevers, "The Great Defiance: How the World Took on the British Empire" (Ebury Press, 2023) 1:11:21

4M ago1:11:21

1:11:21

It’s very easy to study the history of the British Empire from the perspective of, well, the British–and to extend the early 20th century version of the empire as a world-spanning entity backwards through history. David Veevers, in his new book The Great Defiance: How the World Took on the British Empire (Ebury Press, 2023) studies the English, and…

1
Noo Saro-Wiwa, "Black Ghosts: A Journey Into the Lives of Africans in China" (Canongate Books, 2024) 32:53

4M ago32:53

32:53

Just a decade ago, before COVID upended everything, tens of thousands of migrants from African countries traveled to China in search of economic opportunity. One 2012 estimate put the African population in Guangzhou alone at 100,000. When the British-Nigerian travel writer Noo Saro-Wiwa heard about this community, she decided to travel to Guangzhou…

1
Julie Kalman, "The Kings of Algiers: How Two Jewish Families Shaped the Mediterranean World During the Napoleonic Wars and Beyond" (Princeton UP, 2023) 48:06

5M ago48:06

48:06

On July 27th, 1827, the dey of Algiers struck the French consul over his country’s refusal to pay back its debts–specifically, to two Jewish merchant families: the Bacris, and the Busnachs. It was an error of judgment: France blockaded Algiers, and later invaded, turning Algeria into a French colony. The unpaid debt has festered as a diplomatic iss…

1
Ben Rothenberg, "Naomi Osaka: Her Journey to Finding Her Power and Her Voice" (Dutton, 2024) 43:27

5M ago43:27

43:27

In July 2021, Naomi Osaka—world number 1 women’s tennis player—lit the Olympic Cauldron at the Tokyo Olympic Games. The half-Japanese, half-American, Black athlete was a symbol of a more complicated, more multiethnic Japan—and of the global nature of high-level sports. Osaka is now about to start her comeback, after taking some time off following t…

1
Thomas J. Barfield, "Shadow Empires: An Alternative Imperial History" (Princeton UP, 2023) 49:44

5M ago49:44

49:44

Empires are one of the most common forms of political structure in history—yet no empire is alike. We have our “standard” view of empire: perhaps the Romans, or the China of the Qin and Han Dynasties—vast polities that cover numerous different people, knit together by strong institutions from a political center. But where do, say, the empires of th…

1
Simon Partner, "Koume's World: The Life and Work of a Samurai Woman Before and After the Meiji Restoration" (Columbia UP, 2023) 1:02:41

5M ago1:02:41

1:02:41

In 1864, on a midsummer’s day, Kawai Koume, a 60-year old matriarch of a samurai family in Wakayama, makes a note in her diary, which she had dutifully written in for over three decades. There are reports of armed clashes in Kyoto. It’s said that the emperor has ordered the expulsion of the foreigners, and it’s also said that a large band of vagabo…

1
Diego Javier Luis, "The First Asians in the Americas: A Transpacific History" (Harvard UP, 2024) 57:06

6M ago57:06

57:06

There’s a popular folk hero in Puebla, Mexico—Catarina de San Juan, who Mexicans hailed as a devoted religious figure after her death in 1688. She’s credited with creating the China Poblana dress, a connection of dubious historical veracity made several centuries after her death. But Catarina is one of Mexico’s most famous “chinos”—despite the fact…

1
Gregory Wallance, "Into Siberia: George Kennan's Epic Journey Through the Brutal, Frozen Heart of Russia" (St. Martin's Press, 2023) 54:28

6M ago54:28

54:28

It’s perhaps one of history’s funny accidents that relations between the U.S. and Russia were changed not by one, but two, George Kennans. Decades before George F. Kennan wrote his famous Long Telegram that set the tone for the Cold War, his predecessor was exploring Russia’s Far East on a quest to investigate the then-Russian Empire’s practice of …

1
Joshua Ehrlich, "The East India Company and the Politics of Knowledge" (Cambridge UP, 2023) 38:02

6M ago38:02

38:02

The East India Company was a unique entity in world history: More than just a commercial enterprise, the Company tried to act as its own government. Not many at the time–whether legislators or company officials in London, and certainly not Indian people—though this was a great idea. As Joshua Ehrlich notes in his book The East India Company and the…

1
Adrian Goldsworthy, "Rome and Persia: The Seven Hundred Year Rivalry" (Basic Books, 2023) 1:08:39

6M ago1:08:39

1:08:39

For almost seven centuries, two powers dominated the region we now call the Middle East: Rome and Persia. From the west: The Roman Republic, later the Roman Empire, later the Byzantine Empire. From the East: The Parthian Empire, later replaced by the Sasanian Empire. The two ancient superpowers spent centuries fighting for influence, paying each ot…

1
Agnes Chew, "Eternal Summer of My Homeland" (Epigram Books, 2023) 34:54

7M ago34:54

34:54

The opening story of Eternal Summer of My Homeland (Epigram Book, 2023) the debut story collection from Singaporean author Agnes Chew, is about grief. Hui Shan loses her mother right before the birth of her first child–and gradually cuts her father out of her life after he refuses to do the traditional things one does to commemorate the death of a …

1
Lindsay Pereira, "The Memoirs of Valmiki Rao" (Vintage Books, 2023) 32:37

7M ago32:37

32:37

In December 1992, Hindu nationalists seize the Babri Masjid mosque and tear it down, proclaiming their wish to build a Hindu temple in its stead. The brazen act of destruction sparks riots throughout the country, particularly in Mumbai, where Muslims and Hindus clash in the streets. An estimated nine hundred people, both Muslim and Hindu, die in th…

1
Timothy Brook, "The Price of Collapse: The Little Ice Age and the Fall of Ming China" (Princeton UP, 2023) 39:16

7M ago39:16

39:16

Ming China in 1642 had suffered a series of disasters. Floods, and then drought had destroyed successive rice crops, sending the price of grain to astronomical levels. As one schoolteacher wrote: “There was no rice in the market to buy. Even if a dealer had grain, people passed by without asking the price. The rich were reduced to scrounging for be…

1
Scott D. Seligman, "Murder in Manchuria: The True Story of a Jewish Virtuoso, Russian Fascists, a French Diplomat, and a Japanese Spy in Occupied China" (U Nebraska Press, 2023) 43:07

7M ago43:07

43:07

On an August night in 1933 Harbin in then-Japanese controlled Manchuria–Semyon Kaspe, French citizen, famed concert musician, and Russian Jew, is abducted after a night out. Suspicion falls on the city’s fervently anti-semitic Russian fascists. Yet despite pressure from the French consulate, the Japanese police slow-walk the investigation—and three…

1
Elise Hu, "Flawless: Lessons in Looks and Culture from the K-Beauty Capital" (Dutton, 2023) 35:14

7M ago35:14

35:14

In August, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to Twitter to complain about how U.S. regulations are holding local sunscreens back compared to the rest of the world. And while she didn’t name any specific country, the video featured headlines that did name one nation: South Korea. On social media, Korean cosmetics are now viewed as the wor…

1
Hugo Wong, "America's Lost Chinese: The Rise and Fall of a Migrant Family Dream" (Oxford UP, 2023) 47:18

8M ago47:18

47:18

Like countless other migrants from China, Hugo Wong’s great-grandfathers–Wong Foon Chuck and Leung Hing–travel across the Pacific to make a life for themselves in San Francisco. Unlike many of their peers, they don’t stay, instead traveling south, to Mexico–in part to escape growing anti-Chinese prejudice in the United States. They thrive, at least…

1
Susan Blumberg-Kason, "Bernardine's Shanghai Salon: The Story of the Doyenne of Old China" (Post Hill Press, 2023) 39:32

8M ago39:32

39:32

In 1929, Bernardine Szold Fritz left Paris on a train bound for China. She was on her way to her fourth wedding, and her fourth husband: An American investment banker named Chester Fritz, who’d proposed after a whirlwind meeting earlier in Shanghai. Bernardine is then forced to find herself things to do in interwar China–and her husband isn’t helpi…

1
John Zubrzycki, "Dethroned: The Downfall of India’s Princely States" (Hurst, 2024) 59:28

8M ago59:28

59:28

Post-independence India had a big problem–about 40% of its land wasn’t, well, India. Instead, this land was in the hands of the princely states: Rulers who had signed agreements accepting the rule of the British Empire, while getting a relatively free hand to rule their local jurisdictions. And these weren’t small states. Hyderabad–whose ruler made…

1
Jeffrey Angles, ed., "Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again: The Original Novellas by Shigeru Kayama" (U Minnesota Press, 2023) 38:30

8M ago38:30

38:30

Earlier this month, Toho Studios released “Godzilla Minus One”—the 37th film in the now almost seven-decade-old franchise. Godzilla has gone through many phases over the past 70 years: symbol of Japan’s nuclear fears, cuddly defender of humanity, Japanese cultural icon and, now, the centerpiece of another Hollywood cinematic universe. But it was 19…

1
Arupjyoti Saikia, "The Quest for Modern Assam: A History, 1942-2000" (India Allen Lane, 2023) 49:31

9M ago49:31

49:31

The northeast Indian state of Assam has had a complex history. As independence loomed, Assam was a large British province, bordering the fellow British colony of Burma and covering a large segment of India’s northeast. Today’s Assam is much smaller: First partition cut Assam off from the rest of India, with just a tiny “chicken neck” of land connec…

1
Aarathi Prasad, "Silk: A History in Three Metamorphoses" (William Collins, 2023) 51:33

9M ago51:33

51:33

Silk—a luxury fabric, a valuable trade good, and a scientific marvel. This material, created by the bombyx mori silkworm, has captivated artisans for centuries—and it captivated science presenter and writer Aarathi Prasad, who was studying the scientific potential of silk for new treatments. That started Aarathi on a journey to explore the world of…

1
Toby Matthiesen, "The Caliph and the Imam: The Making of Sunnism and Shiism" (Oxford UP, 2023) 43:29

9M ago43:29

43:29

It was common during the years of the U.S. invasion of Iraq to talk about the Sunni-Shia split—and how the sectarian violence was the result of a “centuries-long hatred” between the two different religious schools. But seeing this divide as the result of a longstanding feud—or to see it in the model of other religious schisms, like the Catholic-Pro…

1
Gabe Durham, "The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask" (Boss Fight Books, 2020) 1:01:52

9M ago1:01:52

1:01:52

For the third anniversary of the Asian Review of Books podcast, I wanted to do something a little different today—and talk about another one of my hobbies, video games. For video game players of—let’s call them the elder millennial set and older—there’s something special about the final dozen or so years of the 20th century. The Super Nintendo, the…

1
Chris Stowers, "Bugis Nights" (Earnshaw Books, 2023) 40:29

10M ago40:29

40:29

In 1987, Chris Stowers ditches his dull job in the UK and embarks on a trip throughout the Asia-Pacific, following countless other adventurers traveling with just a backpack and a miniscule budget in what he calls the “golden age of travel.” In his many adventures around the region, two particular stories stand out enough for Chris to turn into a b…

1
Hannah Michell, "Excavations: A Novel" (One World, 2023) 37:06

10M ago37:06

37:06

Sae, former journalist turned a young mother of two in 1992 Seoul, is waiting for her husband, an engineer for a small construction company. He’s late. A neighbor rushes down with the news: a high-rise downtown has collapsed, trapping hundreds inside–the same high-rise that Sae’s husband is working. That disaster, which parallels the real-life Samp…

1
Alexandra Kaloyanides, "Baptizing Burma: Religious Change in the Last Buddhist Kingdom" (Columbia UP, 2023) 36:41

10M ago36:41

36:41

Adoniram Judson was the 19th-century version of an American celebrity. Americans flocked to listen to his tales of being one of the first missionaries to enter the Kingdom of Burma. Americans wanted to hear of his mission in the Buddhist kingdom; Judson was reportedly uncomfortable with the attention. These missions to Burma flopped among the Buddh…

1
Seema Alavi, "Sovereigns of the Sea: Omani Ambition in the Age of Empire" (India Allen Lane, 2023) 54:21

10M ago54:21

54:21

It’s one of the strange artifacts of history that Zanzibar, off the coast of Tanzania, was once controlled by the Sultanate of Oman. In 1832, then Sultan Sayyid Saïd bin Sultan al-Busaidi made the island his capital, with the empire split in two upon his death: one based in Muscat, one based in Zanzibar. As Seema Alavi notes in her history, Soverei…

1
Kerry Brown, "China Incorporated: The Politics of a World Where China is Number One" (Bloomsbury, 2023) 40:17

10M ago40:17

40:17

How do we talk about China? It’s a question every analyst, academic, policymaker, and reporter probably needs to ask themselves. Is China, as some of the hawks claim, an existential threat to the world order? Is it on the verge of aggressively taking the number one spot—or is it on the verge of collapse? Is it a dangerous military threat or is it—a…

1
Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, "Ancient Persia and the Book of Esther: Achaemenid Court Culture in the Hebrew Bible" (I. B. Tauris, 2023) 36:55

11M ago36:55

36:55

The Book of Esther, one of the historical books in the Torah and the Old Testament, is known as a story of community, discrimination, and human ingenuity. It’s core to the Jewish holiday of Purim, with singing, feasting, and other merriment. And it’s unique as one of the few books in the Bible that doesn’t mention God. At all. But it’s also useful …

1
Maximillian Mørch, "Plains of Discontent: A Political History of Nepal’s Tarai (1743-2019)" (FinePrint, 2023) 47:12

11M ago47:12

47:12

When we think of Nepal, we think of its high Himalayan mountains, or maybe the highlands of Kathmandu. But somewhere between a quarter and a third of the country is nothing like that: marshy, forested, malaria-infested swampland, along the southern border with India. This is the Tarai, the most productive region of Nepal—and also the focal point fo…

1
Nishanth Injam, "The Best Possible Experience: Stories" (Pantheon, 2023) 36:15

11M ago36:15

36:15

The characters in Nishanth Injam’s The Best Possible Experience (Pantheon, 2023), his debut short story collection, are like many in India or in Indian communities in the United States: Working hard and enduring hardships to try to get a better life for themselves. They don’t always succeed—and even those that do lose something along the way. That …

1
Samrat Choudhury, "Northeast India: A Political History" (Oxford UP, 2023) 35:47

11M ago35:47

35:47

For much of the past three months, the northeastern Indian state of Manipur—nestled right up against the border with Myanmar—has been the site of a conflict between two groups: the majority Meiteis and the minority Kukis. The fighting–with scenes of brutal violence, looting of police stations, and burnt places of worship–even sparked a motion of no…

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