Stephen R. Platt

STEPHEN R. PLATT is a historian of modern China. He is a professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and holds a PhD in history from Yale University, where his dissertation won the Theron Rockwell Field Prize. A fellow of the National Committee on US-China Relations' Public Intellectuals Program, he seeks to engage the wider public in deeper issues of China's history and its relations with the West. His newest book is Imperial Twilight (2018), a history of the long-term origins of the Opium War. His previous book, Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom (2012), was a Washington Post notable book and won the Cundill History Prize.