Barbarians at the Gate

In 1981, the Indian writer and poet Vikram Seth traveled from Nanjing, where he was studying literature, to his hometown of Delhi. Moving by train across China to Gansu, then hitchhiking southwest through Qinghai and Tibet,

David and Jeremiah are traveling this week, which means, like the days of summer TV (pre-Internet and pre-InfiniteStreamingNetflixVerse), we are replaying one of our favorite earlier episodes. We hope you enjoy this "one from the vault" and we'll be ba...

It’s just two guys talking China's naval history. In this episode, David and Jeremiah dig into the story of Zheng He, the 15th-century admiral who took China's treasure fleets halfway around the world as Western Europe was just starting to figure out o...

Picture this: You’re 45 years old, halfway through writing the definitive history of your civilization. Writing this history is the family business, and you’ve made a promise to your dying father to finish his work no matter what, when your boss,

In this encore episode of Barbarians at the Gate from March 2024, John Alekna talks about his fascinating new book Seeking News, Making China: Information Technology and the Emergence of Mass Society. In 20th-century China,