The Raider: China and the Life of Evans Carlson, with Historian Stephen Platt
Sinica Podcast11 Jun 2025

The Raider: China and the Life of Evans Carlson, with Historian Stephen Platt

This week on Sinica, I chat with Stephen Platt, historian at UMass Amherst and author, most recently, of the book The Raider: The Untold Story of a Renegade Marine and the Birth of U.S. Special Forces in World War II. Like his previous works, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom and Imperial Twilight, it offers a compelling narrative history of an overlooked chapter through a deeply empathetic and well-researched examination of individual lives. Please make sure to listen to the excerpt from the audiobook at the end of this podcast.

04:21 - Evans Carlson: A forgotten hero

07:49 - The Real Carlson vs. the constructed Carlson

10:04 - The book's origin

12:20 - Carlson's ideological transformation

16:50 - Carlson's religious beliefs and public perception

20:04 - Emerson's influence on Carlson's thinking

23:46 - Inner conflicts: Soul-searching or regret?

27:15 - Carlson's relationship with President Franklin D. Roosevelt

30:39 - Gung Ho Meetings: meaning, practice, and legacy

33:34 - Zhu De’s influence on Carlson

40:28 - Carlson’s relationships with Agnes Smedley and Edgar Snow

47:49 - Hopes for U.S.-China alliance

51:57 - Carlson’s death and his legacy

58:01 - Lessons from Carlson


Paying it Forward: Peter Thilly, Emily Mokros


Recommendations:

Stephen: 11.22.63 by Stephen King; Ted Chiang (author); Otoboke Beaver (band); Book of Mormon (musical)

Kaiser: Wobbler (band); The Religion by Tim Willocks; Zappa (2020)



See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Episoder(538)

Out of Africa: The swifts of Beijing

Out of Africa: The swifts of Beijing

Amazing research now suggests that Beijing's swifts, the tiny creatures most residents pass by without noticing, are some of the most well-travelled birds on the planet, averaging an astonishing 124,...

20 Des 201556min

Live at the Bookworm, part two: What's ahead for China?

Live at the Bookworm, part two: What's ahead for China?

This is the second part of our episode of Sinica recorded during a special live event at the Bookworm Literary Festival. In this show David Moser and Kaiser Kuo were joined by China-newcomer Jeremy Go...

15 Nov 201536min

Live at the Bookworm, part one: How has Beijing changed over the years?

Live at the Bookworm, part one: How has Beijing changed over the years?

Our episode of Sinica this week was captured during a special live event at the Bookworm Literary Festival, where David Moser and Kaiser Kuo were joined by China-newcomer Jeremy Goldkorn, fresh off th...

14 Nov 201555min

Fokke Obbema on China's rising power and the nation's relations with the West

Fokke Obbema on China's rising power and the nation's relations with the West

The West has spent decades pleading with China to become a responsible stakeholder in the global community, but what happens now that China is starting to take a more proactive role internationally? I...

27 Okt 201554min

Tu Youyou and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Tu Youyou and the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

This week on Sinica, we are delighted to present a show on Tu Youyou, the Chinese scientist who recently shared a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her discovery of the anti-malaria drug Artem...

21 Okt 201555min

Edmund Backhouse in the long view of history

Edmund Backhouse in the long view of history

Edmund Backhouse, the 20th-century Sinologist, long-time Beijing resident, and occasional con artist, is perhaps best known for his incendiary memoirs, which not only distorted Western understanding o...

4 Okt 201548min

Sinica archive: Beijing's Great Leap Forward

Sinica archive: Beijing's Great Leap Forward

Great Leap Brewery is an institution. As one of the earliest American-style microbreweries in China, not only has the company rescued us from endless nights of Snow and Yanjing, but it's also given us...

27 Jul 201549min

Rogier Creemers on cyber Leninism and the political culture of the Chinese internet

Rogier Creemers on cyber Leninism and the political culture of the Chinese internet

Kaiser Kuo and David Moser are delighted to be joined in Popup Towers by Rogier Creemers, post-doctoral fellow at Oxford, author of the fantastic China Copyright and Media blog and one of the most inf...

8 Apr 201558min

Populært innen Business og økonomi

stopp-verden
lydartikler-fra-aftenposten
dine-penger-pengeradet
e24-podden
rss-penger-polser-og-politikk
rss-borsmorgen-okonominyhetene
pengepodden-2
pengesnakk
tid-er-penger-en-podcast-med-peter-warren
livet-pa-veien-med-jan-erik-larssen
morgenkaffen-med-finansavisen
utbytte
rss-sunn-okonomi
stormkast-med-valebrokk-stordalen
rss-markedspuls-2
okonomiamatorene
lederpodden
liberal-halvtime
finansredaksjonen
rss-finanslunsj