Chinese History
From the Archives – Blown Away: The (Attempted) Mongol Invasion of Japan
Sometimes life makes it impossible to write blog posts on a dependable basis. This is one of the those times. For the next little while, I’m going to run pieces from September and October five or six years past. I hope you enjoy them, and I’ll be back as soon as I can. From September,…
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Mulan, Again
Three and a half years ago, pen and paper in hand, I sat down to watch Disney’s 1998 animated film Mulan for the first time since it was originally released. I came to the task with some uneasiness. I was in the midst of writing Women Warriors. The historical (or perhaps legendary) figure Mulan is…
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Champion’s Day: The End of Old Shanghai
I will admit that I approached historian James Carter’s book Champion’s Day: The End of Old Shanghai with seriously mixed feelings. On the one hand, I spent some time last year reading about the International Settlement in Shanghai in the 1930s while I was working on a piece on self-styled “girl reporter” Peggy Hull I…
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