Soviets, Cybernetics, and China: A Reading Program

Two years ago I ran a small reading group that met over zoom. Our reading topic: Leninism. Curious about the claims that modern Chinese politics are an outgrowth of Marxist ideas and practice yet feeling insufficiently familiar with the Leninist political tradition to properly judge its influence on contemporary Chinese politics, I organized a group of China-watching politicos to read both classic Marxist texts and historical studies of the Soviet Union and Maoist China.

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Introducing the Center for Strategic Translation

Many readers have wondered at my low writing output this year. This week I am happy to announce the answer to the riddle: the Center for Strategic Translation.

The Center for Strategic Translation locates, translates, and annotates documents of historic or strategic value that are only available in Chinese. As director of the new center I have had the chance to work with a host of talented translators to make this project a reality.

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Talking Very Online Conservatism with Titus Techera

Two weeks ago I appeared on Titus Techera’s podcast Post-Modern Conservative to talk with him about my article for the National Review,  “Learning the Wrong Lessons From Reform Conservatism” and the blog-post that went with it, “Conservatism’s Generational Civil War.” Our discussion was fruitful and wide ranging: over its course we discussed various intellectual currents […]

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Blogs I Read, Researchers I Follow, and Podcasts I Listen To

I spent some time this weekend updating the blog roll and other side bars, which I had otherwise left untouched for a year or two. Hypothetically one could use Internet Archive to see how the blog roll has changed since this blog’s inception twelve years ago. Many of the internet’s best blogs simply do not […]

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On the Future of this Blog

A snapshot from the reader survey. This is you, folks. TO THE READERS OF THE SCHOLAR’S STAGEβ€” I started The Scholar’s Stage in 2008. n thee pages I have hosted debates on population centric counterinsurgency, ancient Chinese philosophy, antebellum American history, the ideology of the Communist Party of China, modern American culture wars, and just […]

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Making Sense of Chinese History: A Reading List

A picture of a book shelf I own. We often hear of people who will descend to any servility, submit to any insult for the sake of getting themselves or their children into what is euphemistically called good society. Did it ever occur to them that there is a select society of all the centuries […]

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The Real Reason Chinese is “So Damn Hard”

The Tropical MBA podcast is one of the few I listen to religiously. Theirs is the premier podcast produced by and for ‘location independent entrepreneurs,’ which I’ll define here as entrepreneurs who have built businesses that allow their owners to operate from just about anywhere on the planet–or at least anywhere on the planet with […]

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