Chinese History

Museums acquire. They keep. They care for their objects. And it always causes a bit of a stir when a museum decides to sell something from its collection. In May of 2018, at Christie’s in Hong Kong, an 18th-century Chinese vase owned by Philbrook Museum of Art sold for $14.5 million. On this episode, we chat with Philbrook Director Scott Stulen to learn the full story behind this potentially controversial decision. 

(Please note: This interview first aired last year.) Our guest is Vanessa Hua, a columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle, who joins us to discuss her debut novel, "A River of Stars." It's a powerful and moving saga of modern-day motherhood, immigration, and identity in which a pregnant Chinese woman makes her way to California (i.e., Los Angeles, and then San Francisco's Chinatown) in pursuit of the American dream.

Our guest is Vanessa Hua, a columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle, who joins us to discuss her debut novel, "A River of Stars: A Novel." It's a powerful and moving saga of modern-day motherhood, immigration, and identity in which a pregnant Chinese woman makes her way to California (i.e., Los Angeles, and then San Francisco's Chinatown) in pursuit of the American dream. Per USA Today: "Hua's story spins with wild fervor, with charming protagonists fiercely motivated by maternal and survival instincts."

Our guest on ST is David Shambaugh, the Director of the China Policy Program at George Washington University.

In 1938, Dr. Sigmund Tobias (who was a toddler at the time) and his family were forced to flee from their native Berlin, Germany, to one of the poorest districts of Shanghai, China, where they lived as refugees along with 17,000 other European Jews for more than a decade. Dr. Tobias is our guest today on StudioTulsa. He will share his moving personal story as the featured speaker for the Tulsa Council for Holocaust Education's 20th Annual Yom HaShoah / Interfaith Holocaust Commemoration, which happens tomorrow night (Thursday the 20th) at Congregation B’nai Emunah.

On this installment of StudioTulsa, we speak with Evan Osnos, a staff writer at The New Yorker who's also a fellow at the Brookings Institution as well as a contributor to This American Life and Frontline. His widely acclaimed book, "Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China" -- based on the eight years he spent living in Beijing -- won the 2014 National Book Award for Nonfiction. Osnos speaks with us in detail about this book, which was called a "splendid and entertaining picture of 21st-century China" by The Wall Street Journal.

On this installment of StudioTulsa, we welcome the bestselling author Mark Kurlansky back to our show. Kurlansky's latest book, which he discusses with us today, is "Paper: Paging Through History." It's a detailed and deeply researched volume that both explains and explores one of the simplest and most essential pieces of human technology. For the past 2,000 years or so, the ability to produce paper in ever more efficient ways has supported -- if not driven -- the proliferation of literacy, media, religion, education, commerce, and art.

Our guest on ST is Erika Lee, who teaches history at the University of Minnesota, where she's also the Vecoli Chair in Immigration History and Director of the Immigration History Research Center. Lee tells us about her widely acclaimed new book, "The Making of Asian America: A History" (Simon & Schuster). As noted in this book's Introduction: "The 19.5 million Asian Americans in the United States today make up almost 6 percent of the total U.S. population. They increased in number by 46 percent from 2000 to 2010 and are now the fastest-growing group in the country.

On this edition of ST, an interesting chat with political analyst Dean Cheng, who works at The Heritage Foundation as a senior research fellow on Chinese political and security affairs. A widely respected political writer and commentator, Cheng has appeared on National Public Radio, CNN International, BBC World Service, and elsewhere, and he recently gave an address to the Tulsa Committee on Foreign Relations.

China -- where so much of the world's population has lived for thousands and thousands of years now, and where several of the world's most polluted cities can be found -- is now starting to transition from a mega-economy that's based on exporting to one that's based on domestic consumerism. What will this transition mean for that country's already-troubled environment? And how is it even possible -- from a soil or fertility perspective -- that parts of China have served as farmland for literally 3,000 years? On this installment of ST, we speak with Prof. Robert B.

On this installment of StudioTulsa, we're talking about the rise of China with David Shambaugh, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University. Professor Shambaugh is a well-known authority on contemporary China and international relations within Asia, and his latest book is "China Goes Global: The Partial Power," which Foreign Affairs has called a "masterful survey." He gave an address to the Tulsa Committee on Foreign Relations last week, and he stopped by our Public Radio Tulsa studios while he was in town.

On this edition of ST, we speak by phone with Eric Jay Dolin, the bestselling author and award-winning popular historian whose previous books include "Fur, Fortune, and Empire: The Epic History of the Fur Trade in America" and "Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America." Dolin's new book, which he discusses with us today, is "When America First Met China: An Exotic History of Tea, Drugs, and Money in the Age of Sail." On this Election Day, after so much stump-speech rhetoric concerning (among several other topics) "getting tough on China," we are taking the long view, so to speak, on thi

On this edition of ST, we listen back to a show that first aired in March, when we spoke by phone with Lisa See, the bestselling author of "Shanghai Girls," "Peony in Love," "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan," "Dragon Bones," and other novels, as well as an acclaimed memoir, "On Gold Mountain." See's latest book, now in paperback, is a novel called "Dreams of Joy" --- this is the book that she tells us about on today's program.