William C. Kirby

William C. Kirby is the T. M. Chang Chair Professor of China Studies at Harvard University and the Spangler Family Chair Professor at Harvard Business School. Professor Kirby was awarded the title of Distinguished Contribution Professor at Harvard University, and now serves as the chairman of the Harvard China Fund and the Harvard Center Shanghai. At Harvard, Professor Kirby served as Director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Chairman of the history department, and Dean of the Harvard College of Arts and Sciences.

As a modern Chinese historian, Professor Kirby’s research focuses on China’s business, economic and political development in an international context. His works cover modern Chinese commercial development (both state-owned and private), the international socialist economy of the 1950s, cross-strait relations, and Sino-European and Sino-US relations. His current research includes contemporary Chinese business studies and comparative studies of higher education in China and Europe. His latest book, Empires of Ideas: Creating Modern Universities from Germany to America to China (Harvard University Press), is now available.