The Politics of History in Today’s China: Legacies of the Late Empire

During the last ten years, the universal truth that history and politics are closely intertwined has been forcefully brought to the attention of historians of the Qing period. This lecture explores the reasons why interpretations of late imperial history – including the very notion of the Qing state as an “empire” – have come to be at the center of a long-running controversy over who has “discursive rights” to “tell China’s story” and what this says about the sources of political legitimacy in China today.

Bio

Mark Elliott is Vice Provost of International Affairs at Harvard University and the Mark Schwartz Professor of Chinese and Inner Asian History in the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations and the Department of History.

As vice provost, Elliott oversees and advances international initiatives, extending the global reach of Harvard’s research and teaching activities, building academic collaborations, and deepening ties to peer institutions worldwide. In addition to guiding Harvard’s overall global strategy and engagement, he supports its extended international community, including over ten thousand students, scholars, and faculty in Cambridge and Boston, and tens of thousands of alumni around the world.

Elliott is an authority on the last four centuries of Chinese history, particularly the Qing period (1636-1911). His research encompasses the history of relations between China and its nomadic frontier, focusing on questions of ethnicity, institutions, and empire. An expert in Manchu studies, he is known as a pioneering figure in the “New Qing History,” which emphasizes the imprint of Inner Asian traditions upon China’s last imperial state.

A graduate of Yale, Elliott earned his PhD in History at the University of California, Berkeley. He has taught at Harvard since 2003.

This event is part of the Perspective Asia Lecture Series.