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 of Chinese history for more than 50 years, but also included what, in retrospect, can only be seen as patently fictitious stories of erotic encounters between the British baronet and Empress Dowager Cixi.
This week on Sinica, we are delighted to be joined by Derek Sandhaus of Earnshaw Books, who has recently produced an abridged edition of Backhouse’s memoirs for the Hong Kong publishing house. As an expert on the facts and fictions of Edmund Backhouse, Derek joins us for a discussion of what is real and less-than-real in Backhouse’s deathbed reminiscences, and what we can and should learn about Qing-era China from his memoirs.
Recommendations:
David Helliwell’s blog
https://oldchinesebooks.wordpress.com
Decadence Manchu, by Edmund Backhouse
https://www.amazon.com/Decadence-Mandchoue-Memoirs-Trelawny-Backhouse/dp/9881944511
Derek Sandhaus’s two works:
Baijiu: The Essential Guide to Chinese Spirits
http://www.amazon.com/Baijiu-Essential-Guide-Chinese-Spirits/dp/0143800132
Tales of Old Peking
http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Old-Peking-Tumultuous-Capital/dp/9881815428
David Moser
Asian Observer: This Day In Chinese History
Derek Sandhaus
The Hermit of Peiking, by Hugh Trevor-Roper
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/190601101X?
Homoerotic Sensibilities in Late Imperial China, by Cuncun Wu
http://www.amazon.com/Homoerotic-Sensibilities-Routledge-Association-Australia/dp/041564836X/
Kaiser Kuo
Chublic Opinion – Down with Nihilism
http://chublicopinion.com/2015/08/31/down-with-the-nihilists/
Can the Chinese Government get its people to like GMOs?, by Christina Larson
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/can-the-chinese-government-get-its-people-to-like-g-m-o-s
