On the Spot: Gina Anne Tam
‘What is the most common misconception about my field? That China has “5,000 years” of continuous history.’
Why are you a historian of China?
China is a critical part of the world. We cannot understand the modern world if we neglect China.
What’s the most important lesson history has taught you?
That the future is unknowable but malleable.
Which history book has had the greatest influence on you?
Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities.
What book in your field should everyone read?
Adam McKeown’s Melancholy Order and Edward Said’s Orientalism.
Which moment would you most like to go back to?
4 May 1919, Beijing University.
Which historian has had the greatest influence on you?
I often come back to Susan Mann and her approach to historical narrative.
Which person in history would you most like to have met?
Linguist, translator and all-round delightful nerd Yuen Ren Chao.
How many languages do you have?
Two solidly, two mediocrely.
Is there an important historical text you have not read?
I have not read Dream of the Red Chamber in its entirety.
What historical topic have you changed your mind on?
It once seemed unthinkable that China would turn away from the trajectory of openness and liberalisation we saw in the early 2000s. I was wrong.
What is the most common misconception about your field?
That China has ‘5,000 years’ of continuous history.
What’s the most exciting field in history today?
Chinese history is becoming more transnational; moving outside of the nation-state is bearing exciting new stories.
Who is the most underrated person in history…
Translators.
… and the most overrated?
Most self-described innovators and business tycoons – Rockefeller, Iwasaki, T.V. Soong, Musk...
What’s your favourite archive?
Guangdong Provincial Archives.
What’s the best museum?
The National Palace Museum, Taipei, or the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.
What technology has changed the world the most?
Vaccines, antibiotics, birth control, abortifacients, cheap menstrual products.
Recommend us a historical novel...
R.F. Kuang’s Babel.
... and a historical drama?
Not exactly a drama, but the musical Six.
You can solve one historical mystery. What is it?
We have recreations of ancient Chinese languages, but what did they actually sound like?
Gina Anne Tam is Associate Professor of History and Co-Chair of Women and Gender Studies at Trinity University, San Antonio. She is the author of Dialect and Nationalism in China, 1860-1960 (Cambridge University Press, 2020).
