"How China's wartime past is shaping its present - and future", Sunday Oct. 25 2015

**This event canceled**

Rana Mitter, Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China at Oxford.

Sunday, October 25th

4-6pm

Venue:

British Consulate General Boston

7th floor, 1 Broadway,

Cambridge, MA 02142

Beijing’s policies continue to dominate the news in the Asia-Pacific region. Will China and Japan clash in the seas of East Asia? Will China be able to implement social welfare policies that will calm dissent and social unrest? Why did it take so long for China to become such a major power? One unexpected but crucial story that helps illuminate these different questions is the wrenching history of China’s experience during World War II, in the epic war against Japan from 1937 to 1945. Over 14 million Chinese died and some 80 million became refugees during those years. This lecture will explore how the battered China of wartime became today’s superpower in the making – and why.

Rana Mitter is Deutsche Bank Director of the University China Centre at the University of Oxford, where he is Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China. He is the author of several books, including the award-winning A Bitter Revolution: China’s Struggle with the Modern World (Oxford, 2004). His most recent book China’s War with Japan, 1937-45: The Struggle for Survival (Penguin, 2013) won the 2014 RUSI/Duke of Westminster’s Medal for Military Literature, was named as a 2013 Book of the Year in the Financial Times and the Economist and a 2014 Choice Outstanding Academic Title, as well as being named a Book of the Week on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria: GPS. In the UK he is a regular presenter of the arts and ideas programme Free Thinking on BBC Radio 3, which can heard worldwide online. He comments regularly on contemporary Chinese politics and society in media around the world, and his reviews and essays have appeared in newspapers including the Financial Times, International New York Times, Guardian, Telegraph, Caijing, and Outlook (India). Tickets cost $25 per person ($20 for Oxford & Cambridge Society members). Advance reservation is required due to the venue's security requirements, and should be completed by Wednesday, October 21st using the form below to add each ticket to your shopping cart before checking out: