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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Janet McIntosh, "Kill Talk: Language and Military Necropolitics" (Oxford UP, 2025)

Janet McIntosh, "Kill Talk: Language and Military Necropolitics" (Oxford UP, 2025)

Even casual observers of the military will notice the unique ways that service members use language. With all of the acronyms and jargon, some even argue that membership in the military requires learn...

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Susan L. Carruthers, "Making Do: Britons and the Refashioning of the Postwar World" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

Susan L. Carruthers, "Making Do: Britons and the Refashioning of the Postwar World" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

Imagine a world in which clothing wasn't superabundant – cheap, disposable, indestructible – but perishable, threadbare and chronically scarce. Eighty years ago, when World War II ended, a textile fam...

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Alex Vernon, "Peace Is a Shy Thing: The Life and Art of Tim O'Brien" (St. Martin's Press, 2025)

Alex Vernon, "Peace Is a Shy Thing: The Life and Art of Tim O'Brien" (St. Martin's Press, 2025)

The first literary biography of Tim O'Brien, the preeminent American writer of the war in Vietnam and one of the best writers of his generation, drawing on never-before-seen materials and original int...

5 Heinä 202550min

Antonio J. Muñoz, "Hitler's War Against the Partisans During the Stalingrad Offensive: Spring 1942 to the Spring of 1943" (Frontline, 2025)

Antonio J. Muñoz, "Hitler's War Against the Partisans During the Stalingrad Offensive: Spring 1942 to the Spring of 1943" (Frontline, 2025)

Dr. Antonio J. Muñoz's Hitler’s War Against the Partisans During The Stalingrad Offensive: Spring 1942 to the Spring of 1943 (Frontline Books, 2025) explores the brutal and widespread partisan warfare...

27 Kesä 20251h 33min

Wilson T. Bell, "Stalin's Gulag at War: Forced Labour, Mass Death, and Soviet Victory in the Second World War" (University of Toronto Press, 2018)

Wilson T. Bell, "Stalin's Gulag at War: Forced Labour, Mass Death, and Soviet Victory in the Second World War" (University of Toronto Press, 2018)

Stalin's Gulag at War: Forced Labour, Mass Death, and Soviet Victory in the Second World War (University of Toronto Press, 2018) places the Gulag within the story of the regional wartime mobilization ...

26 Kesä 20251h 31min

Danielle Leavitt, "By the Second Spring: Seven Lives and One Year of the War in Ukraine" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2025)

Danielle Leavitt, "By the Second Spring: Seven Lives and One Year of the War in Ukraine" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2025)

An intimate, affecting account of life during wartime, told through the lives that have been shattered. Even as scores of Americans rally to the Ukrainian cause and adopt Volodymyr Zelensky as a hero,...

25 Kesä 202553min

Lily Hamourtziadou, "The Ethics of Remote Warfare" (University of Wales Press, 2024)

Lily Hamourtziadou, "The Ethics of Remote Warfare" (University of Wales Press, 2024)

Can there be purely defensive or moral wars? In response to this question and others like it, this book offers unique insights into twenty-first-century warfare through the lenses of realism, militari...

21 Kesä 202533min

James D. Brown, "Cracking the Crab: Russian Espionage Against Japan, from Peter the Great to Richard Sorge" (Hurst, 2025)

James D. Brown, "Cracking the Crab: Russian Espionage Against Japan, from Peter the Great to Richard Sorge" (Hurst, 2025)

Richard Sorge is one of history’s most famous spies. This hard-drinking, womanising, motorcycle-crashing Soviet officer penetrated the German embassy in Tokyo during the 1930s and gathered intelligenc...

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