AA Bastian 卞曉菁 | باستيان

Here is my new book cover. The Dispatch: Rogue Americans in British Asia.

After 14.5 years my book The Dispatch: Rogue Americans in British Asia is coming out November 24th from Audant Publishing House. I will update for pre-sales soon. I'm so excited! If you know Levi Savage. This is also his story.

"Time and the hour run through the roughest day." — William Shakespeare (Macbeth, Act 1, Scene 3)

Just learned I am closer than I thought. Book publishing countdown.

My mom has very emphatically told me to edit carefully all the way to the end of the book. Multiple times. It is her pet peeve when writers cut corners at the end. So we’re breathing, sleeping, showering in the edits of the last fateful chapters.

Im in Vail, Colorado this week. Here is a snapshot of the Fall foliage here.

I am back on social media. My book is finally coming out! More news soon! #book

I went down so many enjoyable rabbit holes for this. The New Yorker cartoon is incredible.

What is happening under ICE is so ugly it’s hard to take. Happening in 2026. The article is vivid. Deportees Recount Harrowing Journeys to Africa: Shackles, a ‘Freezer’ and Blows www.nytimes.com/2026/08/30/w...

British East India Company’s relevance to today. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/28/o...

I’m still in shock that I’ve spent a descent amount of time in a social setting with Greer and his wife. Could I have guessed it would go like this? www.politico.com/news/2026/08...

Breaking my heart this morning: “Fitting ankle monitors on noncitizens without a criminal history who remain in compliance with their immigration cases has little precedent.” True in the narrowest sense. False given how the history of slavery and peonage roars through each part of this story.

this attitude is, imo, one of the biggest keys to a happy life no matter who you are, there are going to be people in your life who are more successful than you at things you care deeply about, and sometimes that’s skill and sometimes it’s luck, but if you resent them for it you’ll be miserable

Great article on Tibet, the new “Ethnic Unity Law”, and the man who just died protesting it. www.msn.com/en-in/news/w...

Them: Nation-states are natural History: So after the Ming pirate king kicked the VoC out of Taiwan, the VoC seized a ship owned by the Siamese king crewed by Chinese seaman flying the Portuguese flag, after which Siam's Persian portmaster got the pirate king's ppl to attack the Dutch quarter

Came across this advertisement for a Chinese typewriter - reminded me of @tsmullaney.bsky.social ‘s book! I also like that it is advertised as a ”new tool of the new era“ (新時代的新工具). Has a nice ring to it! #Sinology #ChineseHistory

Thousands of Uyghurs became key fighters against Syria's Assad regime. For the first time, they agreed to be interviewed. NPR spent weeks with some of them to understand why they fled China for Syria.

New author headshot drop.

…and the first public flushing toilets in England.

When you’ve been working on a project for so long and with so many interruptions that you’ve bought the book you ‘have to have’ twice (2019, 2024; I blame Covid).

In a world of madness, the faces of London’s first fire brigade have been discovered.Their identities have been paired with documents which help to tell their stories. Forgotten humans, salvaged from history’s silence. Photos found of London's first public firefighters www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

starting to think blue sky might have a lot of writers on here

A ship from the 1281 Mongol invasion of Japan has been found in Imari Bay. www.yahoo.com/news/article... #shipwreck #maritimehistory #navalhistory

found some pictures of forest elephants looking like creepy voyeurs in the bushes for @scoiattolo.mountainherder.xyz’s conference talk

A useful reminder that you *want* 'your side' to be losing military war games a lot. The whole point is to ask, 'how will this go in unfavorable circumstances' or 'what is the worst, most effective way my enemy can come at me?' If your military wins all their war games...those are bad war games.

Finland didn't really have a women's suffrage movement. It had a universal suffrage movement. It was a class struggle. Upper class women treated working class women worse than working class men did. Women's rights got a boost from working class men fighting for equal rights alongside them.

Women's contribution to the workforce as leaders of households, craftspeople, or factory workers for example, has been a necessity. Women having some independence and agency was normal. Equality and worker's movements were part of one big movement pushing for rights all across the board.

English physician, anaesthetist, and epidemiologist John Snow was born on this day in 1813. Snow is best remembered for tracing a cholera outbreak in Soho to the water in the Broadstreet Pump

This is one of my favorite grave decorations in Arras. More personalized dioramas celebrating professions, please.

www.ft.com/content/7a53...

I just signed a contract with Routledge to publish my second book, titled, Authority and Disruption in Early Modern Maritime Theatre: Mock Kings at Sea. It will be the first comparative study on maritime theatre across multiple cultures and languages.

Really interested in reading about the impact of Iran’s oil on Pakistan right now. I have a dear friend in Karachi whose been telling me about some of the impacts on individuals, And I’d love to learn more about it broadly. But hard to find so far..

This is from 1975.

We have a zine! Over the past year, I've been working w/ Pusat Sejarah Rakyat and the International Institute of Social History to bring together organisations around Southeast Asia working on archiving and disseminating "people's histories" and the histories of social movements in the region. 1/4

Demilitarise elephants! The one on the left is holding a rifle, and the other one is using a sword. If only the late Hannibal would have known ...

As someone whose second book is forthcoming, I'm still smarting from how hard it was. So here's a new addition to #teamsecondbook resources: the Omohundro Institute's summer workshop for second (etc) book writers, The Historian's Writerly Craft. Apps due 4/20 (lol) oieahc.wm.edu/events-overv...

The man who just experienced his own regime change not too long ago Should know he needs to withdraw based on free oil tanker passage alone.