In two recent podcast episodes published by the New Books Network and the Asian Review of Books, Prof. Zev Handel sits down with podcast hosts to discuss his new book, Chinese Characters across Asia: How the Chinese Script Came to Write Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese (University of Washington Press, 2025). Prof. Handel's book explores the spread and adaptation of the Chinese script across two millennia and thousands of miles, offering insights into human cognition and culture as it examines critical questions about the origins and nature of Chinese characters: Where does this writing system, so different in form and function from alphabetic writing, come from? How does it really work? How did it come to be used to write non-Chinese languages? And why has it proven so resilient?
Listen to both episodes of the New Books Network and the Asian Review of Books podcasts, and learn more about Prof. Handel's book via the University of Washington Press.