The Last Events of 2016

During this week we hosted our last two events of 2016. On Monday 12 December we welcomed Frances Wood and Christopher Arnander to launch their new book, Betrayed Ally: China in the Great War. This war helped China emerge from obscurity and begin its first tentative steps on the global stage

Both Christopher and Frances shared with the gathered audience about their research for the book and the story that it reveals of China’s intent in joining the War against Germany and its subsequent betrayal in the allocation of former German territory to Japan.

We wish Frances and Christopher much success with this book – if you’re still short of a Christmas present, it is published by Pen and Sword Books Ltd and can be found on their website.

On Wednesday 14th December we welcomed back Professor Nile Green from UCLA. He presented the last in the RAS Lecture Series in 2016 and spoke on the creation of an Afghan national identity by local historians in the pre-Taliban era. His interest in, and understanding of, the relevant Persian texts was obvious, as he has sought to identify how different strands of Afghan culture and history had been woven together to create a more cohesive national story.

We would like to say a warm thank you to our  visiting speakers in 2016 and also to the many who have made up our audiences. We hope that you will be able to attend more events in 2017, the first of which will be Dr Edward Anderson from the University of Cambridge. On Thursday 12 January, at 6pm, he will lecture on “Hindu Nationalism Abroad: The Indian Diaspora and Hindutva’s Early Transnational Development (1946-77). We hope you will be able to join us on that occasion.

The RAS Reading Room closes today, Friday 16th December, and will reopen on Friday 6th January 2017. We have a had a successful and rewarding 2016, welcoming researchers from all over the world and putting on a variety of events. We look forward to continuing this in 2017 and hope you will find some “need” – whether for academic research or just plain curiosity – to come and visit us.