Kate Merkel-Hess
@katemh.bsky.social
Also 梅凯悦. Historian of Modern China.
Books: Women and Their Warlords (2024), The Rural Modern (2016).
Books: Women and Their Warlords (2024), The Rural Modern (2016).
Pinned
Kate Merkel-Hess
@katemh.bsky.social
· Nov 9
Women and Their Warlords
Explores the complex history and legacy of elite wives, concubines, and daughters of warlords in twentieth-century China. In Women and Their Warlords, historian Kate Merkel-Hess examines the lives a...
press.uchicago.edu
My new book, Women and Their Warlords, was published last month. You can order it at the press website w/a 30% discount using the code UCPNEW. But why would you want to buy a book when you don’t know what it’s about? Here’s the argument. 🧵 press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...
“We must come to realize that if we live long enough, every one of us will experience disability. Instead of viewing those with disabilities or chronic illness as unproductive or no longer useful, we must fight for a society that measures its health by how well it cares for those who need the most.”
RFK Jr. has shut down the Office of Long COVID Research and Practice, gutted funding, and derailed trials and studies.
I Am One of 20 Million in US With Long COVID. RFK Pulled the Rug From Under Us.
RFK Jr. has shut down the Office of Long COVID Research and Practice, gutted funding, and derailed trials and studies.
truthout.org
October 21, 2025 at 10:37 PM
“We must come to realize that if we live long enough, every one of us will experience disability. Instead of viewing those with disabilities or chronic illness as unproductive or no longer useful, we must fight for a society that measures its health by how well it cares for those who need the most.”
Reposted by Kate Merkel-Hess
"Generations of Chinese women have been rendered voiceless by the patriarchy. Their stories refuse soft burials."
So honored to have a review essay out in Banned Books Week @chinabooksreview.com on two of Fang Fang's most acclaimed novels, Soft Burial & The Running Flame, tr. @bairuiwen.bsky.social:
So honored to have a review essay out in Banned Books Week @chinabooksreview.com on two of Fang Fang's most acclaimed novels, Soft Burial & The Running Flame, tr. @bairuiwen.bsky.social:
October 10, 2025 at 4:13 PM
"Generations of Chinese women have been rendered voiceless by the patriarchy. Their stories refuse soft burials."
So honored to have a review essay out in Banned Books Week @chinabooksreview.com on two of Fang Fang's most acclaimed novels, Soft Burial & The Running Flame, tr. @bairuiwen.bsky.social:
So honored to have a review essay out in Banned Books Week @chinabooksreview.com on two of Fang Fang's most acclaimed novels, Soft Burial & The Running Flame, tr. @bairuiwen.bsky.social:
Reposted by Kate Merkel-Hess
In this piece on "genre borrowing" I study why netizens use Sima Qian's "arrayed biography" (列传) form to write biographies of Li Wenliang & how the narrative devices of this ancient genre align with the logic of digital culture. Open access! @asc.upenn.edu journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Sage Journals: Discover world-class research
Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.
journals.sagepub.com
October 7, 2025 at 12:37 PM
In this piece on "genre borrowing" I study why netizens use Sima Qian's "arrayed biography" (列传) form to write biographies of Li Wenliang & how the narrative devices of this ancient genre align with the logic of digital culture. Open access! @asc.upenn.edu journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Reposted by Kate Merkel-Hess
For the Mid-Autumn Festival, I translated the 17th century failson, epicure, and memoirist Zhang Dai's account of the annual Mid-Autumn singing competition on Tiger Hill in Suzhou. www.burninghou.se/p/mid-autumn...
Mid-Autumn, Tiger Hill, Late Ming
"Everyone was perfectly silent, even the mosquitoes."
www.burninghou.se
October 6, 2025 at 5:43 AM
For the Mid-Autumn Festival, I translated the 17th century failson, epicure, and memoirist Zhang Dai's account of the annual Mid-Autumn singing competition on Tiger Hill in Suzhou. www.burninghou.se/p/mid-autumn...
Reposted by Kate Merkel-Hess
'When, in 1991, China opened its doors to foreign adoption, international demand led to the trafficking of babies overseas'
Jessie Lau: Two victims of China’s one-child policy
Jessie Lau: Two victims of China’s one-child policy
Baby snatchers
www.the-tls.com
September 30, 2025 at 10:22 AM
Incredibly thoughtful piece on the uses (or lack thereof) of AI. Historians will find this thinking relevant too.
September 30, 2025 at 12:14 AM
Incredibly thoughtful piece on the uses (or lack thereof) of AI. Historians will find this thinking relevant too.
Reposted by Kate Merkel-Hess
“We are told by leaders that we are the future. But when it comes to the ongoing pandemic, our present is being stolen right in front of our eyes.”
Incredible speech by Violet Affleck who warned about the ongoing dangers of COVID & Long Covid, & advocated for masks and clean air at the UN today!
Incredible speech by Violet Affleck who warned about the ongoing dangers of COVID & Long Covid, & advocated for masks and clean air at the UN today!
September 23, 2025 at 9:53 PM
“We are told by leaders that we are the future. But when it comes to the ongoing pandemic, our present is being stolen right in front of our eyes.”
Incredible speech by Violet Affleck who warned about the ongoing dangers of COVID & Long Covid, & advocated for masks and clean air at the UN today!
Incredible speech by Violet Affleck who warned about the ongoing dangers of COVID & Long Covid, & advocated for masks and clean air at the UN today!
Reposted by Kate Merkel-Hess
My tribute to Paul Cohen as historian & mentor to many www.asianstudies.org/in-memoriam-... cc @lmansley.bsky.social
In Memoriam: Paul A. Cohen (1934-2025) - Association for Asian Studies
Paul A. Cohen, who died on September 15, 2025 at the age of 91, made significant contributions to both the interdisciplinary field of Chinese studies and the discipline of history. The most obvious wa...
www.asianstudies.org
September 23, 2025 at 2:56 PM
My tribute to Paul Cohen as historian & mentor to many www.asianstudies.org/in-memoriam-... cc @lmansley.bsky.social
Reposted by Kate Merkel-Hess
This powerful essay by @yangyangchen is in the special section on Authoritarian and Resistance
So grateful to write for @dissentmag.bsky.social's Fall 2025 issue "Authoritarianism and Resistance." I drafted the piece in June with the new school year in mind, as an immigrant scholar severed from her homeland: What can we teach the young about how to exist and persist at this historic juncture?
To Outlive Tyranny - Dissent Magazine
Flesh and blood alone cannot halt the advance of iron and steel. To stop the tanks, we need people to place blocks on the road and throw sand into the gears.
www.dissentmagazine.org
September 8, 2025 at 8:48 PM
This powerful essay by @yangyangchen is in the special section on Authoritarian and Resistance
Thoughtful interview with Stanford Prof Matthew Sommer (by @mauracunningham.bsky.social) about Sommer's new book, which is on my to-read list for the fall. Lots of insights and observations for further thought just in this q-and-a.
New #AsiaNow post: Historian Matthew Sommer talks with editor @mauracunningham.bsky.social about his 2024 @columbiaup.bsky.social book, The Fox Spirit, the Stone Maiden, and Other Transgender Histories from Late Imperial China.
buff.ly/FsvJaIm
buff.ly/FsvJaIm
September 2, 2025 at 1:46 PM
Thoughtful interview with Stanford Prof Matthew Sommer (by @mauracunningham.bsky.social) about Sommer's new book, which is on my to-read list for the fall. Lots of insights and observations for further thought just in this q-and-a.
Reposted by Kate Merkel-Hess
The Japanese editions of BETRAYING BIG BROTHER: The Feminist Awakening in China just arrived! My book has now been translated into Italian, Korean, Portuguese and Japanese. The New York Public Library named Betraying Big Brother one of its “essential reads on feminism”: bookshop.org/p/books/betr...
August 24, 2025 at 4:23 PM
The Japanese editions of BETRAYING BIG BROTHER: The Feminist Awakening in China just arrived! My book has now been translated into Italian, Korean, Portuguese and Japanese. The New York Public Library named Betraying Big Brother one of its “essential reads on feminism”: bookshop.org/p/books/betr...
Reposted by Kate Merkel-Hess
I'm excited to share that my first monograph, "China's Date Debate: How Manchurian Scholars Rewrote World War II," is available for preorder through the University of Michigan Press, China Understandings Today series!
China’s Date Debate press.umich.edu/Books/C/Chin...
China’s Date Debate press.umich.edu/Books/C/Chin...
China’s Date Debate
China’s Date Debate is an in-depth investigation of the Chinese Communist Party’s remapping of China’s World War II timeline from eight years (1937-–1945) to fourteen years (1931–1945). Instead of the...
press.umich.edu
August 21, 2025 at 6:41 PM
I'm excited to share that my first monograph, "China's Date Debate: How Manchurian Scholars Rewrote World War II," is available for preorder through the University of Michigan Press, China Understandings Today series!
China’s Date Debate press.umich.edu/Books/C/Chin...
China’s Date Debate press.umich.edu/Books/C/Chin...
Reposted by Kate Merkel-Hess
Glad to see this reposted, gave me a chance to give shout outs for good books that were largely under the radar, eg a set of Liang Qichao essays, an accessible book by @katemh.bsky.social w/a great title:Women & Their Warlords, also includes an early plug for a 2025 book: by @emilyzfeng.bsky.social
"I find appealing works that push back against monolithic views of this big country, and I want to do a bit to amplify their impact."
fivebooks.com/best-books/t...
fivebooks.com/best-books/t...
The Best China Books of 2024
American professor and modern Chinese history specialist, Jeffrey Wasserstrom, talks us through some of his favorite books about China published in 2024.
fivebooks.com
May 25, 2025 at 5:40 AM
Glad to see this reposted, gave me a chance to give shout outs for good books that were largely under the radar, eg a set of Liang Qichao essays, an accessible book by @katemh.bsky.social w/a great title:Women & Their Warlords, also includes an early plug for a 2025 book: by @emilyzfeng.bsky.social
Reposted by Kate Merkel-Hess
🧵 I'm not doing a full-scale tour to promote my forthcoming very short trade book that discusses some inspiring activists in Thailand and exiles from Hong Kong and Burma globalreports.columbia.edu/books/the-mi... but I'll do events related to it in NYC June 9, DC June 10-13, some details below....
The Milk Tea Alliance · Columbia Global Reports
Why are activists in Thailand, Hong Kong, and Burma willing to court danger to help one another? The political situations in Burma, Thailand, and Hong Kong are radically different. Only Burma is in a ...
globalreports.columbia.edu
May 23, 2025 at 10:52 AM
🧵 I'm not doing a full-scale tour to promote my forthcoming very short trade book that discusses some inspiring activists in Thailand and exiles from Hong Kong and Burma globalreports.columbia.edu/books/the-mi... but I'll do events related to it in NYC June 9, DC June 10-13, some details below....
Smart piece by Violet Affleck on COVID, climate response, & disability activism:
"The climate resilience our society needs to build relies upon the skills and systems of pacing that disabled and chronically ill people have built to manage both their own symptoms and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic."
"The climate resilience our society needs to build relies upon the skills and systems of pacing that disabled and chronically ill people have built to manage both their own symptoms and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic."
A Chronically Ill Earth: COVID Organizing as a Model Climate Response in Los Angeles. By Violet Affleck
May 18, 2025
"After all, the promised end to the pandemic has been more a matter of public relations than public health."
yaleglobalhealthreview.com/2025/05/18/a...
May 18, 2025
"After all, the promised end to the pandemic has been more a matter of public relations than public health."
yaleglobalhealthreview.com/2025/05/18/a...
A Chronically Ill Earth: COVID Organizing as a Model Climate Response in Los Angeles
BY VIOLET AFFLECK I spent the January fires in Los Angeles arguing with my mother in a hotel room. She was shell-shocked, astonished at the scale of destruction in the neighborhood where she raised…
yaleglobalhealthreview.com
May 20, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Smart piece by Violet Affleck on COVID, climate response, & disability activism:
"The climate resilience our society needs to build relies upon the skills and systems of pacing that disabled and chronically ill people have built to manage both their own symptoms and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic."
"The climate resilience our society needs to build relies upon the skills and systems of pacing that disabled and chronically ill people have built to manage both their own symptoms and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic."
Reposted by Kate Merkel-Hess
If you're in the Bay Area, the @hooverinstitution.bsky.social
book launch for my @stanfordpress.bsky.social biography of Xi Jinping's father will be on June 3: the day of the book's release. You can also join virtually.
www.hoover.org/events/party...
book launch for my @stanfordpress.bsky.social biography of Xi Jinping's father will be on June 3: the day of the book's release. You can also join virtually.
www.hoover.org/events/party...
May 15, 2025 at 4:59 PM
If you're in the Bay Area, the @hooverinstitution.bsky.social
book launch for my @stanfordpress.bsky.social biography of Xi Jinping's father will be on June 3: the day of the book's release. You can also join virtually.
www.hoover.org/events/party...
book launch for my @stanfordpress.bsky.social biography of Xi Jinping's father will be on June 3: the day of the book's release. You can also join virtually.
www.hoover.org/events/party...
Reposted by Kate Merkel-Hess
Happy to report that I've got a new book out, The Raider.
May 13, 2025 at 8:40 PM
Happy to report that I've got a new book out, The Raider.
Reposted by Kate Merkel-Hess
I don’t do this often but I highly encourage yall to preorder my friend John Beck’s book; out next month. It’s extremely good; like a modern day but real life ‘The Americans’
“Those Who Should Be Seized Should Be Seized”
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/774464...
“Those Who Should Be Seized Should Be Seized”
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/774464...
Those Who Should Be Seized Should Be Seized by John Beck: 9781685891794 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
A shocking, on-the-ground investigation of the Chinese government’s brutal oppression of its Muslim citizens — the Uyghurs, ethnic Kazakhs, and others — from Xinjiang to the streets of...
www.penguinrandomhouse.com
April 25, 2025 at 1:54 PM
I don’t do this often but I highly encourage yall to preorder my friend John Beck’s book; out next month. It’s extremely good; like a modern day but real life ‘The Americans’
“Those Who Should Be Seized Should Be Seized”
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/774464...
“Those Who Should Be Seized Should Be Seized”
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/774464...
Reposted by Kate Merkel-Hess
This. We are currently in a situation where our national defense against pathogens is on the ropes. I will continue to mask indoors in public, because I can only control my choices and not anyone else’s.
Masking discourse is on again and I’ll just say if you see people masking when few others are it’s likely because they’ve determined that for them, in that setting, the benefit of not catching (or spreading) whatever’s going around is worth the cost of masking. It’s rarely more complicated than that
April 2, 2025 at 10:52 PM
This. We are currently in a situation where our national defense against pathogens is on the ropes. I will continue to mask indoors in public, because I can only control my choices and not anyone else’s.
Reposted by Kate Merkel-Hess
Read Winifred Dongyi Wang's essay about Pai Hsien-yung's "New Yorkers" and immigrant identity: buff.ly/raPftnP
March 28, 2025 at 11:00 AM
Read Winifred Dongyi Wang's essay about Pai Hsien-yung's "New Yorkers" and immigrant identity: buff.ly/raPftnP
Reposted by Kate Merkel-Hess
Your periodic reminder that we are experiencing a mass disabling event.
1/ No amount of "back to work" incentives can overcome neurological damage, vascular disease, and multi-system dysfunction…..
Here’s a short clip on the #Politics vs #bioreality - that sooner or later will affect all of us:
#LongCovid
Here’s a short clip on the #Politics vs #bioreality - that sooner or later will affect all of us:
#LongCovid
March 28, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Your periodic reminder that we are experiencing a mass disabling event.
Reposted by Kate Merkel-Hess
"We’re facing an unsustainable rate of reinfection for an unsustainable percentage of the population with a virus that carries an unsustainably high risk of long-term damage."
As kids get sicker, media ignores scientific papers pointing to immune damage after COVID. Instead, parents are urged to “watch out” for unusual waves of RSV, flu, pneumonia, & more, while masks, clean air and the pandemic are pointedly never mentioned.
www.thegauntlet.news/p/kids-keep-...
www.thegauntlet.news/p/kids-keep-...
Kids keep getting sicker as evidence for COVID immune damage builds
As the press pushes "immunity debt" past the breaking point of believability, are parents ready to wake up to the illness crisis?
www.thegauntlet.news
March 8, 2025 at 11:40 PM
"We’re facing an unsustainable rate of reinfection for an unsustainable percentage of the population with a virus that carries an unsustainably high risk of long-term damage."
This is a very thoughtful piece from Benjamin Breen, reflecting on how we do history and why AI isn't up to the task.
Benjamin Breen: the strengths and inevitable limitations of artificial intelligence for the writing of history.
AI legibility, physical archives, and the future of research
A followup to "The leading AI models are now good historians"
resobscura.substack.com
March 6, 2025 at 12:04 PM
This is a very thoughtful piece from Benjamin Breen, reflecting on how we do history and why AI isn't up to the task.
Reposted by Kate Merkel-Hess
The NIH recently published a study: one of every 22 covid infections triggers ME. People are not being warned that their whole life could just vanish. Journalism literally exists for situations like this. #JohnVsJonVsME
#GreatestMEdicalScandal
💗💝💕💝💗
www.livescience.com/health/coron...
#GreatestMEdicalScandal
💗💝💕💝💗
www.livescience.com/health/coron...
1 in 22 COVID survivors develop debilitating chronic syndrome
A study suggests that catching COVID-19 significantly raises the risk of developing ME/CFS (formerly called "chronic fatigue syndrome"), a typically lifelong condition that can be debilitating.
www.livescience.com
February 15, 2025 at 8:46 AM
The NIH recently published a study: one of every 22 covid infections triggers ME. People are not being warned that their whole life could just vanish. Journalism literally exists for situations like this. #JohnVsJonVsME
#GreatestMEdicalScandal
💗💝💕💝💗
www.livescience.com/health/coron...
#GreatestMEdicalScandal
💗💝💕💝💗
www.livescience.com/health/coron...