Professor of political science Richard Baum has taught at the University of California at Los Angeles for nearly four decades. The former director of the UCLA Center for Chinese Studies, Baum is the author or editor of numerous books, including Burying Mao: Chinese Politics in the Age of Deng Xiaoping. His latest book, due out in 2009, is China Watcher: Confessions of a Peking Tom. He founded ChinaPol, an email discussion group of scholars, officials, journalists, and other professionals in 1995. It now has 900 members.
