Timothy Brook
Born	Timothy James Brook (1951-01-06) January 6, 1951 (age 73) Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Occupation	Sinologist, historian, writer
Language	English, Chinese, French, Japanese
Alma mater	University of Toronto Harvard University
Genre	History
Subject	Sinology; cultural, economic, legal and social history; world trade and globalization
Notable works	Books by the author
Website
www.timothybrook.com

Timothy James Brook (Chinese name: 卜正民; born January 6, 1951) is a Canadian historian, sinologist, and writer specializing in the study of China (sinology).^[1][2][3][4] He holds the Republic of China Chair, Department of History, University of British Columbia.

His research interests include the social and cultural history of the Ming Dynasty in China; law and punishment in Imperial China; collaboration during Japan's wartime occupation of China, 1937–45 and war crimes trials in Asia; global history; and historiography.

Early life and education

Timothy Brook was born on January 6, 1951, in Toronto, Ontario in Canada, grew up in that city and currently lives in Vancouver.^[1][5]

After graduating from the University of Toronto Schools, Brook received a bachelor's degree in English literature at the University of Toronto in 1973; a master's degree in Regional Studies–East Asia at Harvard University in 1977, and in 1984 received a Ph.D. in History and East Asian Languages at Harvard University, where his dissertation advisor was Philip A. Kuhn .^[6]

Academic positions

From 1984–86 Brook was a MacTaggart Fellow at the University of Alberta; from 1986–97 he progressed from Assistant to Full Professor at the University of Toronto; from 1997–99 he was Professor of History at Stanford University, and 1999–2004 he was Professor of History at the University of Toronto,^[6] and Shaw Professor of Chinese at the University of Oxford.^[7] He came to University of British Columbia in 2004, and was Principal, St. John's College 2004–2009.^[4][6] He is also Academic Director of the Contemporary Tibetan Studies Program at the University of British Columbia's Institute of Asian Research.^[8] He was elected President of the Association for Asian Studies 2015.

Selected honors

• 2010 D.Litt., honoris causa, University of Warwick
• 2010 Prix Auguste Pavie, Académie des sciences d'outre-mer, Paris, for Le Chapeau de Vermeer
• 2009 Mark Lynton Prize in History, Columbia University School of Journalism and Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, for Vermeer's Hat
• 2009 Wallace K. Ferguson Prize, Canadian Historical Association, for Death by a Thousand Cuts
• 2006 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship
• 2005 François-Xavier Garneau Medal, Canadian Historical Association., for The Confusions of Pleasure
• 2000 Joseph Levenson Prize, Association for Asian Studies, for The Confusions of Pleasure

Editorial positions

American Historical Review, 2012--; Handbook of Oriental Studies, Brill, Leiden; Studies in Comparative Early Modern History, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis; International Journal of Asian Studies, University of Tokyo; Journal of Ming Studies, Taipei; Ming Studies, Society for Ming Studies, New Mexico State University; Shilin 史林 (Historical studies), Shanghai. Since 2008, he has been Editor-in-chief of The History of Imperial China, a six-volume series published by Harvard University Press.^[9]

Publications

Brook's scholarly publications in the fields of Asian social, economic and legal history and international trade include:

Books written

• Geographical Sources of Ming-Qing History. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1988. Second expanded edition, 2002.
• Quelling the People: The Military Suppression of the Beijing Democracy Movement. New York: Oxford University Press, Toronto: Lester Publishing, 1992; Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998.^{[10][11][12][13][14]}
• Praying for Power: Buddhism and the Formation of Gentry Society in Late-Ming China. Cambridge: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1993.^{[15][16][17][18]}
  • (in Chinese) Wei quanli qidao: fojiao yu wan Ming Zhongguo shishen shehui de xingcheng. Nanjing: Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 2005.^[9]
• The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Winner of the Joseph Levenson Book Prize of 2000.^[19]
  • (in Czech) Čtvero ročních dob dynastie Ming: Čína v období 1368–1644. Prague: Vyšehrad, 2003.
  • (in Chinese) Zongle de kunhuo: Mingdai de shangye yu wenhua. Beijing: Sanlian, Taipei: Linking, 2004.
  • (in Korean) K'waerak ǔi hondon: Chungguk Myǒngdaeǔi sangǒp kwa munhwa. Seoul: Yeesan, 2005.^[9]
• Collaboration: Japanese Agents and Local Elites in Wartime China. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2005.^{[20][21][22][23][24]}
• The Chinese State in Ming Society. London: Routledge Curzon, 2005.^[25][26]
• Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World. New York: Bloomsbury; Toronto: Penguin; London: Profile, 2008.^[3][4]
  • (in French) Le chapeau de Vermeer : Le XVIIe siècle à l'aube de la mondialisation. France: Payot, 2010.
  • (in Italian) Il cappello di Vermeer : il Seicento e la nascita del mondo globalizzato. Turin: Einaudi, 2015.
• Death by a Thousand Cuts, with Jérôme Bourgon and Gregory Blue. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2008.^[27][28]
• The Troubled Empire: China in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2010; Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press, 2013.^[29][30][31]
• Mr. Selden's Map of China. Decoding the Secrets of a Vanished Cartographer. New York, Bloomsbury, 2013. ISBN 978-1-62040-143-9
  • (in Italian) La mappa della Cina del signor Selden : il commercio delle spezie, una carta perduta e il Mar Cinese Meridionale. Turin: Einaudi, 2016.
• Great State: China and the World. London, Profile Books, 2019. ISBN 978-1-78125-828-6 <https://profilebooks.com/great-state.html>

Books edited

• The Asiatic Mode of Production in China. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1989.
• National Polity and Local Power: The Transformation of Late Imperial China, by Min Tu-ki. Co- edited with Philip Kuhn. Cambridge: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1989.
• Culture and Economy: The Shaping of Capitalism in Eastern Asia. Co-edited with Hy Van Luong. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997.
• Civil Society in China. Co-edited with B. Michael Frolic. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1997.
• China and Historical Capitalism: Genealogies of Sinological Knowledge. Co-edited with Gregory Blue. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
  • (in Chinese) Zhongguo yu lishi zibenzhuyi: hanxue zhishi de xipuxue. Taipei: Chu liu tushu gongsi, 2004. Simplified character edition: Shanghai: Xinxing chubanshe, 2005.
• Documents on the Rape of Nanking. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999.
  • (in Chinese) Expanded Chinese translation: Nanjing datusha yingwen shiliao ji. Taipei: Shangwu yinshuguan, 2007.^[9]
• Nation Work: Asian Elites and National Identities. Co-edited with Andre Schmid. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000.
  • (in Chinese) Minzu de goujian: Yazhou jingying ji qi minzu rentong, 2008.^[9]
• Opium Regimes: China, Britain, and Japan, 1839–1952. Co-edited with Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
• The History of Imperial China (6 vols). Cambridge: Harvard University Press (2008-). Editor-in-chief from 2008 to date.^[9]

Awards

In 2009, Vermeer's Hat won Brook the Mark Lynton History Prize from Columbia University in New York, worth $10,000 (U.S.). The prize is one of the Lukas Prize Project awards.^[5][32] The book was described as a "bold, original and compulsively readable work of history."^[5]

Death by a Thousand Cuts was a finalist and received an honourable mention for the Professional/Scholarly Publishing (PSP) Division of the Association of American Publishers 2008 PROSE Award, in the World History and Biography/Autobiography category.^[33][34]