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Jeffrey Wasserstrom

Chancellor's Professor

Jeffrey specializes in modern Chinese cultural history & world history, who has written on many contemporary as well as historical issues

Areas of Expertise

  • Urban
  • Globalization
  • China
  • Protest
  • Gender

Biography

Jeffrey Wasserstrom is Chancellor’s Professor of History at UC Irvine, where he also holds courtesy affiliations in Law and Literary Journalism. Holder of a B.A. from UC Santa Cruz, a master’s from Harvard, and a doctorate from Berkeley, he has written, coauthored, edited or coedited more than ten books. His most recent books are: Vigil: Hong Kong on the Brink (2020) and China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know, updated third edition coauthored with Maura Elizabeth Cunningham (Oxford, 2018). In addition to writing for academic journals, Wasserstrom has contributed to many general interest venues, e.g., the New York Times, the TLS, and the Wall Street Journal. He is an advising editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books and an academic editor of its associated China Channel. He served as a consultant for two prize-winning Long Bow Film Group documentary, was interviewed on camera for the film “Joshua; Teenager vs. Superpower,” is an adviser to the Hong Kong International Literary Festival, and is a former member of the Board of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations. In the spring of 2020, he was to be a Leverhulme Visiting Professor of Birkbeck College, University of London, but taking up that post has been delayed due to COVID-19

Media

Watch on YouTube: The Many Faces of Xi Jinping with Jeffrey WasserstromWatch on YouTube: Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom: China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know - September 11, 2013Watch on YouTube: Jeffrey Wasserstrom: "China in the 21st Century: What Japan Needs to Know"Watch on YouTube: Jeffrey Wasserstrom and MaryKay Magistad: Hong Kong on the Brink

Education

University of California, Berkeley

PhD, History, 1989

Harvard University

MA, East Asian Studies, 1984

University of California, Santa Cruz

BA, History, 1982

Accomplishments

  • Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar
  • Visiting Research Fellow
  • W. Bruce Lincolm Memorial Lecturer (Northern Illinois)

Affiliations

  • American Historical Association
  • Association for Asian Studies

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