By unknown photographer, 1934 — original calligraphy of Tokugawa Ieyasu, 1604 via Wikimedia Commons There are a few times and places in human history whose events are so dramatic, characters so colorful, and dilemmas so tragic that I weep to think that William Shakespeare never heard of them. I get all misty eyed because I […]
Recently the Samurai Archives devoted a few episodes of their podcast to dissecting the relationship between military history and Japanese studies. The lead discussant on the program is Nathan Ledbetter, who blogs once a year or so at Sengoku Field Manual but comments regularly at the Samurai Archives forums. In these episodes his focus is […]
What does Darwin have to do with terracotta warriors, samurai armies, or Napoleon’s conquests? Quite a lot. Or at least this is what I argue in a paper I finished back in April. I anticipated refining it with extra research in the months since then. This hope was not realized. Other projects have consumed my […]
Kobayashi Kiyochika, “In the Battle of the Yellow Sea a Sailor Onboard Our JapaneseWarship ‘Matsushima’, on the Verge of Dying, Asked Whether or Notthe Enemy Ship had been Destroyed” (October 1894) [2000.109a-c] Sharf Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The earliest extant woodblock print was uncovered in a 7th century tomb excavated in the outskirts of […]
Image Source. As much of the material here at The Stage narrates the history of Chinese warfare, diplomacy, and strategic thought or analyzes contemporary Chinese politics and international relations, I am occasionally asked a question that goes something like this: “Mr. Greer, if you had to recommend one book to help me understand how the […]
A collection of articles, essays, and blog post of merit. TOP BILLING “The State of Consumer Technology at the End of 2014“Ben Thompson, Stratechery (16 December 2014). One of the defining characteristics of the three major epochs of consumer computing – PC, Internet, and mobile – is that they have been largely complementary: we didn’t […]
A collection of articles, essays, and blog post of merit. TOP BILLING “What Does a “Good” Adjustment Look Like?“ Michael Pettis, China’s Financial Markets (1 September 2014). This essay is long but excellent. It is also the best thing I have read about the Chinese economy in months. Two quotes to give readers the flavor of […]
Image source: “The New Cold War: China vs. Japan,” The Diplomat (25 January 2014) Peter Lee, who writes columns for Asia Times Online, International Policy Digest, and Counterpunch, is one of the more astute observers of East Asian affairs I have the pleasure to read. He is also a staunch contrarian whose columns are almost always […]
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe delivers the keynote address at the 2014 Shangri-La Dialogue Image Source This weekend I finally had the chance to sit down and read the collected transcripts of the 2014 Shangri-La Dialogue. This year’s round of the Dialogue has garnered much more media attention than usual. The coverage has focused on the […]
I have long been fascinated by the “deep culture” differences that distinguish humanity’s numerous ethnic and cultural groups. That peoples from different continents and climes have different rules of etiquette, eat different foods, follow different schedules, and worship different gods is well known. But in many ways these differences barely scratch the surface of humanity’s […]
