Jeffrey Wasserstrom

Jeffrey Wasserstrom is Professor of History and Department Chair at the University of California, Irvine, where he also edits the Journal of Asian Studies. An Associate Fellow of the Asia Society, his most recent books are China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know (2010) and the forthcoming anthology, Chinese Characters: Fast-Changing Lives in a Fast-Changing Land (2012).

Dr. Wasserstrom has contributed to many academic periodicals, including China Quarterly, Urban History, the Journal of World History, the Journal of Global History, and History Workshop Journal. He also served for several years as one of the editors for the Oxford University Press “Pages from History” series, the goal of which is to produce high quality, document-based books for use in introductory classes, and worked as a consultant to the talented filmmakers of the Long Bow Group, whose documentary on Tiananmen, “The Gate of Heavenly Peace,” was shown on PBS, and whose documentary on the Cultural Revolution, “Morning Sun,” won a prize from the American Historical Association. Dr. Wasserstrom is a specialist in Chinese history interested in a wide range of topics, ranging from the gendered symbolism of revolutions to patterns of student protest, and from the way that globalization affects urban life and popular culture to American images of Asia. Dr. Wasserstrom received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Wasserstrom is co-founder of and contributing editor to the "China Beat," a blog based at UC Irvine, and one of three co-editors of a book made up largely of posts from that blog, China in 2008: A Year of Great Significant (2009).