MAKING MAO'S STEELWORKS
A history of the iconic Anshan Steel plant — from Japanese colonialism through Mao to the post-socialist era. "An intimate portrayal of how modern China operates and adapts from ground up."
August 2024
@hirako13
@CambridgeUP
I am very happy to announce that I just signed a contract with Cambridge University Press (
@cambUP_History
) for my book, “Making Mao’s Steelworks: Industrial Manchuria and the Transnational Origins of Chinese Socialism.” Thanks to many who have supported me through this process.
Historians should stop our obsession with individual achievements and do more collaborative research. We can make our profession better by working together, not competing with each other. Hence, I'll look for potential co-authors whose surnames start with a letter from I to Z.
So honored to see my article, “Made in Manchuria: The Transnational Origins of Socialist Industrialization in Maoist China,” published in
@AmHistReview
I thank so many people for offering valuable advice and support.
.
@hirako13
argues that China’s socialist industrialization was influenced by the global spread of state-directed developmental visions, demonstrating the interconnectedness of capitalism and socialism in the 20th century. Read more in the September issue.
George Qiao's review of "Uncertainty in the Empire of Routine: The Administrative Revolution of the Eighteenth-Century Qing State" (2022) by Maura Dykstra. It's been a while since I last read a book review that checked primary sources used in the book.
I'm so happy to announce that my article,"Mao’s Steeltown: Industrial City, Colonial Legacies, and Local Political Economy in Early Communist China" (JUH, 2021) received this year's Arnold Hirsch Award for Best Article in a Scholarly Journal from the Urban History Association🙂
Our warmest congratulations to the UHA 2022 Award Winners for best books, best scholarly article, and best dissertations in global urban history! See the full list of winners here:
I have been following this new account on PLA issues. Not anymore. Ad hominem attacks on a respected China security expert are uncalled for. We are well past the stereotype that Chinese language skills are a prerequisite for understanding China. Unfollow.
Called the Shanghai Municipal Archives to book a seat in their reading room. Was told that they are not accepting foreigners right now. Is this the case with other Chinese archives as well?
Final page proof check for my book completed. My book will be released simultaneously in paperback and hardcover. From now on, you are not allowed to tell me, or anyone else, about typos and grammatical errors you find in my book.
Today, I was officially promoted to the academic rank of "Level C (Senior Lecturer/Senior Research Fellow)." I know most of you outside Australia have no clue what this academic title means. Blame the system, not me.
A genuine question. Japan scholars abroad (rightly) have been criticizing JP's border closures. But few China scholars abroad have complained about the PRC border closures. Can researchers/students enter China now? Or, have Sinologists lost interest in traveling to China?
A document from Shanghai Municipal Archive, photocopied in 2012, shortly before they re-classified most documents from the post-1949 period. It shows that 109 Japanese nationals were working in light industry in Shanghai in 1957. Of them, 34 were “party members” (CCP?JCP?).
My forthcoming book's cover has been hanging on my office door for a while. Yesterday, someone put another picture above it. I don't know who you are, but thanks for better visualizing what my book is about.
Three things from this 2-day conference on PRC economic history impressed me: 1. it gathered both economists and historians; 2. many local archives are still very open (at least for some topics); 3. a Shanghai professor has never had a WeChat account and doesn’t plan to have one.
J. G. Ballard’s (1930–2009) childhood house in Shanghai. The British novelist was a “Shanghailander,” born and raised in the city’s International Settlement.
I said this many times in the past, and I still stand on principle: Even if you are a top journal, it's wrong for you to force historians to use in-text citations for documents from archives.
A revolutionary change at the (newly relocated) Shanghai Municipal Archives:
--You no longer need a letter of introduction (介绍信). Just bring your passport.
--You need a WeChat account (Chinese version) to use the archives. No WeChat, No Life.
My article (dissertation abstract) "Steel Metropolis: Industrial Manchuria and the Making of Chinese Socialism" (which was a finalist for the 2020 Krooss Prize) has just been published in "Enterprise & Society" (
@TheBHCNews
)
上蹿下跳10年,终于有人认可我的研究。研究建国初期鞍山城市建设的拙文获得了美国城市史学会(Urban History Association)的最优秀期刊论文奖(Arnold Hirsch Award for Best Article in a Scholarly Journal)。鞍山Number One!
Our warmest congratulations to the UHA 2022 Award Winners for best books, best scholarly article, and best dissertations in global urban history! See the full list of winners here:
It always gives me a headache whether to use the phrase "the century of humiliation" in my lecture. The problem is, Anglophone scholars ALWAYS use this phrase to describe the Chinese view on modern history, but it seems that the phrase is not really used often in China.
I will soon give two talks at ANU, where I will discuss different parts of my forthcoming book.
1. Fri, 10 May
@ANUBellSchool
2. Thu, 16 May
@anu_china
MAKING MAO'S STEELWORKS
A history of the iconic Anshan Steel plant — from Japanese colonialism through Mao to the post-socialist era. "An intimate portrayal of how modern China operates and adapts from ground up."
August 2024
@hirako13
@CambridgeUP
Usually, I see totally separate worlds on Twitter and WeChat. But today, all of my academic friends in both worlds are posting about the same person--Jonathan Spence. He lived a meaning life. RIP.
Foreign scholars can still conduct research in some archives in China. But yes, the scope of documents available today is generally much narrower compared to the 2010s, let alone the 2000s. I feel bad for current PhD students. Back in the day, our advisors felt bad for us.
As access to archives in Russia and China is virtually impossible, I feel bad for current PhD students in those fields. I’m not fetishizing archives but I am also kind of wary about the future directions of the fields.