Nicola Di Cosmo Henry Luce Foundation Professor of East Asian History School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
Throughout its history, with the ebb and flow of dynastic power, unity and disaggregation, expansion and invasion, China has been traversed by currents of change of varying magnitudes that were connected with other regions, both close and remote. This talk will examine various ways in which China has engaged the wider world (and vice versa) in its ancient and early modern past.
Nicola Di Cosmo is the Henry Luce Foundation Professor of East Asian History in the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study. His main areas of research are the relations between China and Central Asia from ancient times to the modern period, the history of foreign dynasties in China, and, more generally, frontier relations seen from archaeological, anthropological, and historical perspectives. He taught at Harvard University and at the University of Canterbury (New Zealand) before joining the Faculty of the School of Historical Studies in 2003. He has written on Inner Asian history, Chinese history, and military history and he is the author of several books, including Ancient China and Its Enemies: The Rise of Nomadic Power in East Asian History (2002), A Documentary History of Manchu-Mongol Relations (1616-1626) (2003), and Diary of a Manchu Soldier in Seventeenth-Century China (2006). Professor Di Cosmo has also several edited or co-edited books that include Warfare in Inner Asian History, 500-1800 (2002), Political Frontiers, Ethnic Boundaries and Human Geographies in Chinese History (2001) and Military Culture in Imperial China (2009, A Choice Outstanding Academic Title). He is the Editor of the Central Asiatic Journal.
