A historian of modern China, his work examines China's business, economic, and political development in an international context. He has written on the evolution of modern Chinese business (state-owned and private); Chinese corporate law and company structure; the history of freedom in China; the international socialist economy of the 1950s; relations across the Taiwan Strait; and China's relations with Europe and America. He has held appointments as Visiting Professor at the University of Heidelberg and the Free University of Berlin.  He is Honorary Visiting Professor at Peking University, Nanjing University, Chongqing University, and Fudan University.  At Harvard, he has served as Chair of the History Department, Director of the Asia Center, and most recently, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
His current research projects include case studies of historical and contemporary Chinese businesses and a comparative study of higher education in China and the United States.

Selected Publications

• A World Transformed: A Global History of the Twentieth Century (forthcoming)
• China and the World: Internationalization, Internalization, Externalization (Zhongguo yu shije: guojihua, neihua yu waihua) co-editor (2007)
• Global Conjectures: China in Transnational Perspective
  co-editor (2006)
• Normalization of U.S.-China Relations: An International History co-editor (2006)
• Realms of Freedom in the Modern Chinese World editor (2004)
• State and Economy in Republican China: A Handbook for Scholars (2001)

 

Contact Info

Fairbank Center

Center for Government and International Studies-South Building

Room S128

1730 Cambridge Street

Cambridge, MA 02138

william_kirby@harvard.edu

617.495.5119

Office Hours: Wednesday 4:00-6:00 Contact Jamie Romine for appt.
6-1587

Course(s): HSA 13, HBS 1570

Harvard Business School