China in Change – Photo Discoveries from the Forties – 9/3/16

Posted: March 6th, 2016 | No Comments »

Andrew Hicks will be talking about his book (this coming Wednesday) on the Friends Ambulance Unit China Convoy between 1945 and 1951…..

The Diplomacy of Migration: Transnational Lives and the Making of U.S.-Chinese Relations in the Cold War

Posted: March 5th, 2016 | No Comments »

Meredith Oyen’s Diplomacy of Migration looks interesting…and a great cover!

See a review here on the Taipei Times site…

During the Cold War, both Chinese and American officials employed a wide range of migration policies and practices to pursue legitimacy, security, and prestige. They focused on allowing or restricting immigration, assigning refugee status, facilitating student exchanges, and enforcing deportations. The Diplomacy of Migration focuses on the role these practices played in the relationship between the United States and the Republic of China both before and after the move to Taiwan. Meredith Oyen identifies three patterns of migration diplomacy: migration legislation as a tool to achieve foreign policy goals, migrants as subjects of diplomacy and propaganda, and migration controls that shaped the Chinese American community.

Using sources from diplomatic and governmental archives in the United States, the Republic of China on Taiwan, the People’s Republic of China, and the United Kingdom, Oyen applies a truly transnational perspective. The Diplomacy of Migration combines important innovations in the field of diplomatic history with new international trends in migration history to show that even though migration issues were often considered “low stakes” or “low risk” by foreign policy professionals concerned with Cold War politics and the nuclear age, they were neither “no risk” nor unimportant to larger goals. Instead, migration diplomacy became a means of facilitating other foreign policy priorities, even when doing so came at great cost for migrants themselves.

Snapshotting China 1912 – Rebels of Hankow

Posted: March 4th, 2016 | No Comments »

China Pelicans

Posted: March 4th, 2016 | No Comments »

Pelican, the old non-fiction imprint of Penguin is back and publishing again. The original creation of the Pelican imprint along was in May 1937, two years after Penguin’s founding.Â The first title published under the Pelican name was George Bernard Shawâ€™s The Intelligent Womanâ€™s Guide to Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism & Fascism, in two volumes. There were thousands of titles published under the Pelican name over nearly 50 years. The series tackled everything from political uprisings and scientific exploration to religion across the globe and sociological practices and taboos. After a slow decline, Penguin eventually discontinued the imprint in the late 80s. Then on May 1st, 2014 Pelican books took flight for a second time with the release of five new titles, till minimalist blue and boasting the Pelican logo.

And China did feature in the old Pelican line up…(and if I missed any then do let me know?)

1942

1954

1958

1966

1967

1968

1970

1971

1972

1973

1974

Snapshotting China 1912 – Shanghai Lunch Cart

Posted: March 3rd, 2016 | No Comments »

Mobile lunch carts proliferated across the city in the early twentieth century – wooden, they would announce their presence by banging sticks on the bamboo frame for hungry workers….

Carl Crow recalled Shanghai’s wooden lunch carts in his memoirs – here, slightly rewritten by me…”Sometimes the staff would venture outside to the travelling kitchens and lunch carts that appeared in the business district and were instantly recognisable from the offices above by the proprietors banging their mobile kitchenâ€™s wooden frame with a bamboo stick. These food carts travelled the city all day and all night long and Crow recalled hearing their traditional banging as they made their way along his street calling out to anyone who fancied a late night snack.”