R. Bin Wong is Distinguished Professor of History and was Director of the Asia Institute at UCLA from 2004 through 2016. His research has examined Chinese patterns of political, economic and social change both within Asian regional contexts and compared with more familiar European patterns, as part of the larger scholarly efforts underway to make world history speak to contemporary conditions of globalization. He is author or editor of several books, including China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience (1997) and Before and Beyond Divergence: The Politics of Economic Change in China and Europe (2011), along with more than ninety articles published in North America, East Asia and Europe. Since 2009 he has been a Distinguished Guest Professor at the Fudan University Institute for Advanced Study in Social Sciences. He also serves on the International Advisory Board of the Consortium of Humanities Centers and Institutes and on the Berggruen Institute on Philosophy and Culture Academic Board.