I’m spending the weekend in the very, very, VERY cold city of Washington, DC, attending the annual meeting of the American Historical Association. I will have more to say about that later, but for the moment, a quick link to a video interview with me that History News Network just posted. HNN’s editor is taping short Q&A’s with conference-goers, and asked me last week if I’d agree to speak about Mao Zedong’s 120th birthday, the anniversary of which fell on December 26. He also asked me some questions about child welfare (the subject of my research) and environmental issues. Here’s the video that resulted.
As you can probably guess, we were standing in an alcove in the lobby of the meeting hotel, so there’s a lot of ambient noise and I should have spoken up more. This is my first-ever video interview—really, I prefer to write my ideas rather than speak them!—and it’s a little rough, but I’m sure it could have been worse. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself.
Maura Elizabeth Cunningham 
Gee, I thought it was VERY good and that you carried yourself well and spoke perfectly in front of the camera, something the great majority of us would never be able to do. Well done!!
Well done! Perfect pace, clear and informative. You were poised and confident.