"China: Finding a Modern Identity"

Rana Mitter has been fascinated by China since he was young, and studied Chinese at university. He went on to develop a particular interest in the connections between Chinese nationalism and the experience of war and occupation in the twentieth century.

Rana is 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 A Bitter Revolution: China’s Struggle with the Modern World (Oxford, 2004) for which he was named Times Higher Young Academic Author of the Year. 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 was named a 2014 Choice Outstanding Academic Title. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2015.

In the UK he is a regular presenter of the arts and ideas programme Free Thinking on BBC Radio 3.

Rana is an Hon Member of the Keele World Affairs Advisory Panel.