Minghui's Blogs

Thanks to my friend and colleague Professor Ishii Tsuyoshi, I am leaving on Nov 29 for Tokyo to teach an intensive seminar on the Komaba campus. I will also give a talk on Dec 22, hosted by Professor Ito Takayuki. For details, please see the flyers in Japanese.

I have reviewed about ten books for different journals and read many book reviews in the past two decades. I am pretty certain that I have received a "glowing" review from Professor Dagmar Schäfer. What I am about to say is not really a disclaimer but an appreciation of how academic review system actually works in my case. I never met Professor Schäfer and have virtually no professional relationship with her. Of course Professor Schäfer's reputation proceeds her. I have read and admired her award-winning book and assigned part of it to my undergraduate students before. I have also heard good things about her. For instance, my co-editor Johan Elverskog spoke highly of her work. More importantly, China's Transition to Modernity had not been reviewed by a historian of science until hers appears on Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies in June 2018. To be recognized and appreciated by an outstanding fellow historian whose expertise falls squarely in my field is qui...