https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OR4Z30g7gA https://soundcloud.com/fairbank-center/the-yellow-river-a-natural-and-unnatural-history-with-ruth-mostern?in=fairbank-center/sets/public-lecture-series-fairbank   Speaker: Ruth Mostern, University of Pittsburgh This talk showcases Ruth Mostern’s new book: The Yellow River: A Natural and Unnatural History (Yale University Press, 2021).  The Yellow River explains how environmentally transformative human activity has shaped the whole watershed and constituted the relationship between people and the river since Neolithic times.  […]

Speaker: Ying Jia Tan, Assistant Professor of History and East Asian Studies, Wesleyan University In Recharging China in War and Revolution, 1882–1955 (Cornell University Press, 2021), Ying Jia Tan argues that, even in times of peace, the Chinese economy operated as though still at war, constructing power systems that met immediate demands but sacrificed efficiency […]