Timothy Brook

Timothy James Brook
Born	(1951-01-06) January 6, 1951 Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Pen name	Timothy Brook
Occupation	University professor, historian, writer
Language	English, Chinese
Nationality	Canadian
Education	M.A and Ph.D, Harvard University
Alma mater	University of Toronto
Genres	History
Subjects	Sinology; cultural, economic, legal and social history; world trade and globalization
Notable work(s)	Books by the author
www.iar.ubc.ca/introduction/brook.html

Timothy James Brook (Chinese name: 卜正民; born January 6, 1951), is a distinguished historian specializing in the study of China (sinology).^[1][2][3][4]

Early life and education

Timothy Brook was born on January 6, 1951 in Toronto, Ontario in Canada, grew up in that city and currently lives in Vancouver.^[1][5]

After graduating from the University of Toronto Schools, Brook received a bachelor's degree in English literature at the University of Toronto in 1973; a master's degree in Regional Studies–East Asia at Harvard University in 1977, and in 1984 received a Ph.D. in History and East Asian Languages at Harvard University, where his dissertation advisor was Philip A. Kuhn .^[6]

Academic positions held

From 1984–86 Brook was a MacTaggart Fellow at the University of Alberta; from 1986–97 he progressed from Assistant to Full Professor at the University of Toronto; from 1997–99 he was a Professor at Stanford University, and from 1999 he has been a Professor at the University of Toronto.^[6]

Brook held the Shaw Chair^[7] of Chinese Studies at the University of Oxford^[8] from 2007–2009 and was appointed as principal and professor at the University of British Columbia's St. John's College.^[4][6] He is also Academic Director of the Contemporary Tibetan Studies Program at the University of British Columbia's Institute of Asian Research.^[9]

His research interests include the social and cultural history of the Ming Dynasty in China; law and punishment in Imperial China; collaboration during Japan's wartime occupation of China, 1937–45 and war crimes trials in Asia.

Editorial positions

Brook is on the editorial board of Ming Studies, the semi-annual journal of the Society for Ming Studies.^[10] Since 2008, he has been Editor-in-chief of The History of Imperial China, a six-volume work published by Harvard University Press.^[11]

Publications

Brook's scholarly publications in the fields of Asian social, economic and legal history and international trade include:

Books written

• Geographical Sources of Ming-Qing History. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1988. Second expanded edition, 2002.
• Quelling the People: The Military Suppression of the Beijing Democracy Movement. New York: Oxford University Press, Toronto: Lester Publishing, 1992; Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998.^{[12][13][14][15][16]}
• Praying for Power: Buddhism and the Formation of Gentry Society in Late-Ming China. Cambridge: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1993.^{[17][18][19][20]}

• (Chinese) Wei quanli qidao: fojiao yu wan Ming Zhongguo shishen shehui de xingcheng. Nanjing: Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 2005.^[11]

• The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.^[21]

• (Czech) Čtvero ročních dob dynastie Ming: Čína v období 1368-1644. Prague: Vyšehrad, 2003.
• (Chinese) Zongle de kunhuo: Mingdai de shangye yu wenhua. Beijing: Sanlian, Taipei: Linking, 2004.
• (Korean) K'waerak ǔi hondon: Chungguk Myǒngdaeǔi sangǒp kwa munhwa. Seoul: Yeesan, 2005.^[11]

• Collaboration: Japanese Agents and Local Elites in Wartime China. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005.^{[22][23][24][25][26]}
• The Chinese State in Ming Society. London: Routledge Curzon, 2005.^[27][28]
• Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World. New York: Bloomsbury; Toronto: Penguin; London: Profile, 2008.^[3][4]

• (French) Le chapeau de Vermeer : Le XVIIe siècle à l'aube de la mondialisation. France: Payot, 2010.

• Death by a Thousand Cuts, with Jérôme Bourgon and Gregory Blue. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008.^[29][30]
• The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010; Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 2013.^[31][32][33]

Books edited

• The Asiatic Mode of Production in China. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1989.
• National Polity and Local Power: The Transformation of Late Imperial China, by Min Tu-ki. Co- edited with Philip Kuhn. Cambridge: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1989.
• Culture and Economy: The Shaping of Capitalism in Eastern Asia. Co-edited with Hy Van Luong. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997.
• Civil Society in China. Co-edited with B. Michael Frolic. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1997.
• China and Historical Capitalism: Genealogies of Sinological Knowledge. Co-edited with Gregory Blue. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

• (Chinese) Zhongguo yu lishi zibenzhuyi: hanxue zhishi de xipuxue. Taipei: Chu liu tushu gongsi, 2004. Simplified character edition: Shanghai: Xinxing chubanshe, 2005.

• Documents on the Rape of Nanking. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999.

• (Chinese) Expanded Chinese translation: Nanjing datusha yingwen shiliao ji. Taibei: Shangwu yinshuguan, 2007.^[11]

• Nation Work: Asian Elites and National Identities. Co-edited with Andre Schmid. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000.

• (Chinese) Minzu de goujian: Yazhou jingying ji qi minzu rentong, 2008.^[11]

• Opium Regimes: China, Britain, and Japan, 1839-1952. Co-edited with Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
• The History of Imperial China (6 vols). Cambridge: Harvard University Press (2008-). Editor-in-chief from 2008 to date.^[11]

Awards

In 2009, Vermeer's Hat won Brook the Mark Lynton History Prize from Columbia University in New York, worth $10,000 (U.S.). The prize is one of the Lukas Prize Project awards.^[5][34] The book was described as a "bold, original and compulsively readable work of history."^[5]

Death by a Thousand Cuts was a finalist and received an honourable mention for the Professional/Scholarly Publishing (PSP) Division of the Association of American Publishers 2008 PROSE Award, in the World History and Biography/Autobiography category.^[35][36]

Notes

Interviews

• Staff (11 December 2005). "FRONTLINE: The Tank Man: Interviews: Timothy Brook (edited transcript)". Public Broadcasting Service. Retrieved 2010-01-24. 
• Nappi, Carla (24 February 2012). "Timothy Brook: The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties" (audio). New Books in East Asian Studies. New Books Network. Retrieved 2012-10-23. 

External links

• Roberts, Russ (February 19, 2008). "Brook on Vermeer's Hat and the Dawn of Global Trade". EconTalk. Library of Economics and Liberty.