Scott Crawford, "The Han-Xiongnu War, 133 BC-89 AD: The Struggle of China and a Steppe Empire Told Through Its Key Figures (Pen & Sword, 2023)

Scott Crawford, "The Han-Xiongnu War, 133 BC-89 AD: The Struggle of China and a Steppe Empire Told Through Its Key Figures (Pen & Sword, 2023)

For two centuries, the Xiongnu people–a vast nomadic empire that covered modern-day Siberia, Inner Mongolia, Gansu and Xinjiang—were one of the Han Dynasty’s fiercest rivals. They raided the wealthy and prosperous Chinese, and even forced the Han to treat them as equals—much to the chagrin of those in the imperial court. There’s not much known about the Xiongnu: Even their name is in Chinese, which literally translates to “"fierce slave", which is unlikely to be what the actual people called themselves. But writer and historian Scott Crawford set himself the challenge of writing about the over two-centuries of politics, alliances and conflict between Han China and the Xiongnu empire, in his book The Han-Xiongnu War, 133 BC–89 AD: The Struggle of China and a Steppe Empire Told Through Its Key Figures (Pen & Sword, 2023). In this interview, Scott and I talk about the Xiongnu people, the threat they presented to Han China, political shenanigans at the imperial court, and just how far geographically the conflict expanded. Scott is a novelist and historian. He wrote the historical novel Silk Road Centurion (Camphor Press, 2023) and numerous articles and works of fiction exploring relations between China and its steppe neighbors. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of The Han-Xiongnu War. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at@nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

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Tyler Jost, "Bureaucracies at War: The Institutional Origins of Miscalculation" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

Tyler Jost, "Bureaucracies at War: The Institutional Origins of Miscalculation" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

Why do states start conflicts that they ultimately lose? Why do leaders possess inaccurate expectations of their prospects for victory? Bureaucracies at War (Cambridge UP, 2024) examines how national ...

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Chuck Steele and John M. Jennings, "The Worst Military Leaders in History" (Reaktion Books, 2022)

Chuck Steele and John M. Jennings, "The Worst Military Leaders in History" (Reaktion Books, 2022)

For Chuck Steele and John M. Jennings's book The Worst Military Leaders in History (Reaktion Books, 2022), fifteen distinguished historians were given a deceptively simple task: identify their choice ...

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Madison Schramm, "Why Democracies Fight Dictators" (Oxford UP, 2025)

Madison Schramm, "Why Democracies Fight Dictators" (Oxford UP, 2025)

Over the course of the last century, there has been an outsized incidence of conflict between democracies and personalist regimes—political systems where a single individual has undisputed executive p...

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Luis L. Schenoni, "Bringing War Back In: Victory, Defeat, and the State in Nineteenth-Century Latin America" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

Luis L. Schenoni, "Bringing War Back In: Victory, Defeat, and the State in Nineteenth-Century Latin America" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

Bringing War Back In: Victory, Defeat, and the State in Nineteenth-Century Latin America (Cambridge UP, 2025) provides a fresh theory connecting war and state formation that incorporates the contingen...

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Robert F. Williams, "The Airborne Mafia: The Paratroopers Who Shaped America's Cold War Army" (Cornell UP, 2025)

Robert F. Williams, "The Airborne Mafia: The Paratroopers Who Shaped America's Cold War Army" (Cornell UP, 2025)

The Airborne Mafia: The Paratroopers Who Shaped America's Cold War Army (Cornell UP, 2025) explores how a small group of World War II airborne officers took control of the US Army after World War II....

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M. G. Sheftall, "Nagasaki: The Last Witnesses" (Penguin Random House, 2025)

M. G. Sheftall, "Nagasaki: The Last Witnesses" (Penguin Random House, 2025)

Nagasaki: The Last Witnesses (Penguin Random House, 2025) is the second volume in a prize-worthy two-book series based on years of irreplicable personal interviews with survivors about each of the ato...

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Kolby Hanson, "Ordinary Rebels: Rank-And-File Militants Between War and Peace" (Oxford UP, 2025)

Kolby Hanson, "Ordinary Rebels: Rank-And-File Militants Between War and Peace" (Oxford UP, 2025)

In Ordinary Rebels: Rank-And-File Militants Between War and Peace (Oxford University Press, 2025), Kolby Hanson argues that these periods of state toleration do not simply change armed groups' behavio...

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Tiffany Earley-Spadoni, "Landscapes of Warfare: Urartu and Assyria in the Ancient Middle East" (UP Colorado, 2025)

Tiffany Earley-Spadoni, "Landscapes of Warfare: Urartu and Assyria in the Ancient Middle East" (UP Colorado, 2025)

Landscapes of Warfare: Urartu and Assyria in the Ancient Middle East (University Press of Colorado, 2025) offers an in-depth exploration of the Urartian empire, which occupied the highlands of presen...

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