Lee Moore's China Backstory: Why Saying "History Proves" Actually Means "I Haven't Done the Reading"

Lee Moore's new book challenges both Chinese state propaganda and Western pundits on Taiwan, Xinjiang, the Chinese economy, and Hong Kong with 1400 endnotes, and a drinking game for beheadings.

A historian who writes about Ming emperors getting stabbed in the balls, a drinking game for beheadings in Xinjiang, and why almost everything politicians say about Taiwan’s history is wrong. Lee Moore joins Barbarians at the Gate to discuss his new book.

In this episode, we talk with Lee Moore about China’s Backstory: The History Beijing Doesn’t Want You to Read. It is often said that China is the most talked-about country that Americans know the least about. Lee’s book seeks to enlighten readers with a fresh perspective and a deep dive into four China-related topics that frequently appear in American media: Taiwan, Xinjiang, the Chinese economy, and Hong Kong.

Despite his academic credentials, Lee has chosen to write the book in an accessible style that Jeremiah characterizes as “making the complex simple and the simple complex — complicating narratives without complicating the language, and simplifying complicated histories without dumbing them down.”

With this lively and occasionally risqué prose style (one chapter is entitled “The Most Important Motherfucker in Taiwanese History”), Lee challenges the simplistic historical narratives that often dominate both Chinese state propaganda and Western commentary on China.

Our conversation explores several of the historical questions raised in his book. Was Taiwan always a part of China? It did not even appear on Chinese maps until the 17th century, and the Qing Dynasty did not take control of the island until a year after William Penn founded Philadelphia. Were the Uyghurs the first inhabitants of Xinjiang? The answer is complicated, but the region’s earliest known inhabitants may actually have been Indo-European. And is the Chinese Communist Party’s tight state control over the economy really the “secret sauce” behind China’s rise? Lee takes direct aim at Western pundits who have argued exactly that.

Lee also explains how he makes extensive use of Chinese poetry — from Tang Dynasty border verse to Qing-era colonial writing — translated into colloquial English, to convey the emotions and states of mind of the historical figures who populate his book.

Lee Moore has a PhD in Chinese literature. He is the founder of the Chinese Literature Podcast and has written for The Economist, the China Books Review, and The China Project.

China’s Backstory: The History Beijing Doesn’t Want You to Read is available from Unsung Voices Books wherever books are sold. Find the Chinese Literature Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

Warning/Advertisement: This episode contains explicit language.