Stephen R. Platt
American historian and writer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Stephen R. Platt is an American historian and writer. He is currently a professor of Chinese history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.[1]
Stephen R. Platt | |
|---|---|
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| Occupations | Author, historian |
| Employer | University of Massachusetts Amherst |
Early life and education
Platt holds a PhD in Chinese history from Yale University (2004). His area of expertise is in modern China, especially in the nineteenth century and the Qing dynasty's foreign relations.[2]
Writing career
In 2007 he published Provincial Patriots: The Hunanese and Modern China.[3]
Platt's books Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom and Imperial Twilight examine East-West relations in China during the 19th century, focusing on the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864) and the period leading up the First Opium War (1800-1842).[citation needed]
He published Imperial Twilight in 2018, and Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom in 2012.[3]
Platt has also written for The New York Times, Chinafile, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and Late Imperial China.[3]
Awards and honors
- 2004 Theron Rockwell Field Prize (Yale University) for dissertation Hunanese Nationalism and the Revival of Wang Fuzhi, 1839-1923[4]
- 2012 Cundill Prize in History winner for Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom[5]
- 2018 Baillie Gifford Prize shortlist for Imperial Twilight[6]
Bibliography
- Provincial Patriots: The Hunanese and Modern China (Harvard University Press, 2007).
- Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War (Knopf, 2012)
- Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age (Alfred A. Knopf, 2018)
- The Raider: The Untold Story of a Renegade Marine and the Birth of U.S. Special Forces in World War II (Knopf, 2025)
