This week on Sinica I'm delighted to bring you a live conversation with writer Peter Hessler, recorded at Duke University's Nasher Auditorium in Durham, North Carolina on November 10, 2023. The event was sponsored by the Duke Middle East Studies Center and the Asian Pacific Studies Institute, and was titled "Modern Revolutions in Ancient Civilizations."
Peter, known for both his trilogy of books written in China — Rivertown, Oracle Bones, and Country Driving — as well as for his reporting for The New Yorker, talks about how his years in China gave him perspective when living in Cairo and writing about Egypt during the Arab Spring. His book on Egypt, The Buried: An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution, was made richer for me by the comparisons and contrasts with China threading throughout.
Special thanks to Griffin Orlando of the Middle East Study Center and Alex Nickley from the Asia Pacific Studies Institute, and Ralph Litzinger from Duke Anthropology.
6:27 – What Peter’s China experience brought to his writing on China — and vice-versa
9:45 – Contrasting the Chinese and Egyptian revolutions
18:37 – Revolution in thinking in Egypt and China
35:49 – Peter on his approach to the craft of reporting and writing
51:47 – Peter’s work in China as a longitudinal cohort study — and what it reveals so far
58:03 – A preview of Peter’s forthcoming book, Other Rivers
Recommendations:
Peter: Gerald Durrell, My Family and Other Animals is one of the books
Kaiser: Kenneth W. Harl’s book Empires of the Steppes: A History of the Nomadic Tribes Who Shaped Civilization.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
