Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe

The Sigur Center's Subnational Asia Lecture Series will feature Frank Dikotter, a professor from the Universities of Hong Kong, China, and London.

Frank Dikotter, Chair Professor of Humanities, University of Hong Kong and Professor of Modern History of China, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

Frank Dikotter is Chair Professor of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong and Professor of the Modern History of China on leave from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Born in the Netherlands in 1961, he was educated in Switzerland and graduated from the University of Geneva with a double major in History and Russian. After two years in the People's Republic of China, he moved to London where he obtained his PhD in History from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in 1990. He stayed at SOAS as British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow and as a Wellcome Research Fellow before being promoted to a personal chair as Professor of the Modern History of China in 2002. His research and writing has been funded by over US$ 1.5 million in grants from various foundations, including, in Britain, the Wellcome Trust, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, The Economic and Social Research Council and, in Hong Kong, the Research Grants Council and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation.  He has published nine books that have changed the ways historians view modern China, from the classic The Discourse of Race in Modern China (1992) to China before Mao: The Age of Openness (2007). His most recent book is Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe published by Bloomsbury and Walker Books.