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Podcast: New Books in East Asian Studies
Episode: Franck Billé and Caroline Humphrey, "On the Edge: Life Along the Russia-China Border" (Harvard UP, 2021)
Description: The border between Russia and China winds for 2,600 miles through rivers, swamps, and vast taiga forests. It's a thin line of direct engagement, extraordinary contrasts, frequent tension, and occasional war between two of the world's political giants. Franck Billé and Caroline Humphrey have spent years traveling through and studying this important yet forgotten region. Drawing on pioneering fieldwork, they introduce readers to the lifeways, politics, and history of one of the world's most consequential and enigmatic borderlands.It is telling that, along a border consisting mainly of rivers, there is not a single operating passenger bridge. Two d...