Dynasties in Dialogue: The Tang, the Qing, and China Today

Xiaolu Guo and Paul French explore how China's imperial past continues to shape its present.

Join acclaimed writers Xiaolu Guo and Paul French for a fascinating conversation exploring how China's imperial past continues to shape its present.

Drawing on their latest books, Everyday Tang: On What We Can Learn From a Dynasty and The Last Emperor: Twilight of the Forbidden City, Xiaolu and Paul offer fresh perspectives on two pivotal eras in Chinese history: the Tang and Qing dynasties.

Blending memoir, travel writing and cultural reflection, Xiaolu Guo revisits the Tang dynasty, widely celebrated as a golden age of poetry, philosophy and artistic achievement. Paul, meanwhile, draws on newly uncovered archival sources to illuminate the dramatic final years of the Qing dynasty, revealing the collapse of imperial rule from within the walls of the Forbidden City.

Together, they examine how history is continually reinterpreted through new evidence and changing perspectives. What do these two dynasties reveal about the making of Chinese cultural identity? Why do they continue to resonate today? And how can a deeper understanding of China's imperial past help us make sense of its present?

Her books include A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, shortlisted for the Women's Prize, I Am China, and the memoir Once Upon a Time in the East, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her acclaimed novel, Call Me Ishmaelle, a retelling of Moby Dick, was the 2026 New York Times Editor’s Pick of the Month. Named one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists, Xiaolu Guo has also directed several feature films, including the Golden Leopard-winning She, a Chinese. She has held visiting professorships at Columbia University, CUNY and the Free University of Berlin, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

His book Midnight in Peking was a New York Times bestseller and a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. He received the Mystery Writers’ of America Edgar award for Best Fact Crime and a Crime Writers’ Association Dagger award for nonfiction. City of Devils: A Shanghai Noir received much praise with The Economist calling him a ‘champion storyteller’. His most recent book is the acclaimed Wallis Simpson: Her Lotus Year in 1920s China.