October 17 | Book Discussion
Weiser Hall 447 and Zoom | 3.00 – 4.30 pm
Moderator: Ching-Huan Kuo (MIRS student)
Book Title: McNamee, Lachlan. Settling for Less: Why States Colonize and Why They Stop. Princeton University Press, 2023.
Format: Hybrid with refreshments for in-person participants
For our discussion, please read the following chapters:
“1 Introduction” (pp. 1–27)
“5 Best Friends Make the Worst Enemies: Demographic Engineering during the Sino-Soviet Split” (with Anna Zhang) (pp. 99–114)
“6 Belt and Road to Nowhere: China’s Ongoing Struggle to Colonize Xinjiang” (pp. 115–134)
Chapter 1 grounds the reader in the book’s key questions and arguments. Following that, Chapters 5 and 6, offer a focused case study of China’s attempts to colonize Xinjiang. These two latter chapters provide a comparative analysis of China’s colonization efforts in the same region at two distinct moments in the twentieth century.
