Timothy James Brook (born January 6, 1951 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada), who writes as Timothy Brook and who has had many academic works published, is a distinguished historian specializing in the study of China (Sinology). He is also known as Tim Brook.
Brook holds the Shaw Chair of Chinese Studies at the University of Oxford and was appointed as principal and professor at the University of British Columbia's St. John's College. He is also Academic Director of the Contemporary Tibetan Studies Program at the University of British Columbia's Institute of Asian Research.
Timothy Brook was born on January 6, 1951 in Toronto, Ontario in Canada, "grew up in" that city and currently lives there.
Brook received a bachelor's degree at the University of Toronto in 1973; a master's degree in Regional Studies—East Asia at Harvard University in 1977, and received a Ph.D. in History and East Asian Languages at Harvard University in 1984.
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 a Professor at Stanford University, and from 1999 he has been a Professor at the University of Toronto.
He currently holds the Shaw Chair of Chinese Studies at the University of Oxford's Institute for Chinese Studies and was appointed as principal and professor at the University of British Columbia's St. John's College in Vancouver. He is also Academic Director of the Contemporary Tibetan Studies Program at the University of British Columbia's Institute of Asian Research.
His stated 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.
Editorial positions
Brook is on the editorial board of Ming Studies, the semi-annual journal of the Society for Ming Studies. Since 2008, he has been Editor-in-chief of The History of Imperial China, a six-volume work published by Harvard University Press.
Brook's many scholarly publications in the fields of Asian social, economic and legal history and international trade include the following works which he authored or edited, by himself or in collaboration with others.
For a complete listing last updated in October 2004 (which additionally lists working papers, scholarly papers, encyclopedia articles, oral presentations and guest lectures), see his academic profile at St. John's College, University of British Columbia (UBC), and also his more recent profiles at the Department of History at UBC and at the University of Oxford.
Books written
Geographical Sources of Ming-Qing History. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1988. Second expanded edition, 2002.
The Military Suppression of the Beijing Democracy Movement. New York: Oxford University Press, Toronto: Lester Publishing, 1992; Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998.
Buddhism and the Formation of Gentry Society in Late-Ming China. Cambridge: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1993.
* Wei quanli qidao: fojiao yu wan Ming Zhongguo shishen shehui de xingcheng. Nanjing: Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 2005.
Commerce and Culture in Ming China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
* ?tvero ro?ních dob dynastie Ming: ?ína v období 1368-1644. Prague: Vy?ehrad, 2003.
* Zongle de kunhuo: Mingdai de shangye yu wenhua. Beijing: Sanlian, Taipei: Linking, 2004.
Japanese Agents and Local Elites in Wartime China. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005.
The Chinese State in Ming Society. London: Routledge Curzon, 2005.
The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World. New York: Bloomsbury; Toronto: Penguin; London: Profile, 2008.
* Le chapeau de Vermeer : Le XVIIe siècle à l'aube de la mondialisation. France: Payot, 2010.
Death by a Thousand Cuts, with Jérôme Bourgon and Gregory Blue. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008.
Books edited
Last updated October 2004.
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.
* 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.
Nation Work: Asian Elites and National Identities. Co-edited with Andre Schmid. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000.
* Minzu de goujian: Yazhou jingying ji qi minzu rentong, 2008.
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.
Book chapters
Last updated October 2004.
"The Spread of Rice Cultivation and Rice Technology into the Hebei Region in the Ming and Qing." In Explorations in the History of Science and Technology in China, ed. Li Guohao et al., pp. 659—90. Shanghai: Classics Publishing House, 1982.
* "Ming-Qing liangdai Hebei diqu tuiguang zhongdao he zhongdao jishu de qingkuang." In Zhongguo keji shi tansuo, pp. 633-56. Shanghai: Guji chubanshe, 1986.
"Family Continuity and Cultural Hegemony: The Gentry of Ningbo, 1368-1911." In Chinese Local Elites and Patterns of Dominance, ed. Joseph Esherick and Mary Rankin, pp. 27—50. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.
"Toward Independence: Christianity in China under Japanese Occupation, 1937-1945." Christian-ity and China: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present, ed. Daniel Bays, pp. 317—37. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996.
"Native Identity under Alien Rule: Local Gazetteers of the Yuan Dynasty." In Pragmatic Literacy, East and West, 1200-1330, ed. Richard Britnell, 235-45. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 1997.
"Profit and Righteousness in Chinese Economic Culture." In Culture and Economy, ed. Timothy Brook and Hy Van Luong, pp. 27—44.
"Auto-Organization in Chinese Society." In Civil Society in China, ed. Timothy Brook and B. Michael Frolic, pp. 19—45.
"At the Margin of Public Authority: The Ming State and Buddhism." Culture and State in Chinese History: Conventions, Conflicts, and Accommodations, ed. Theodore Huters, R. Bin Wong, and Pauline Yü, pp. 161—81. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997.
"Communications and Commerce." In The Cambridge History of China, vol. 8: The Ming Dynasty, pt. 2, ed. Frederick Mote and Denis Twitchett, pp. 579—707. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
"Capitalism and the Writing of Modern History in China." In China and Historical Capitalism, ed. Timothy Brook and Gregory Blue, pp. 110—57.
"Collaborationist Nationalism in Wartime Occupied China." In Nation Work, ed. Timothy Brook and Andre Schmid, pp. 159—90.
"Opium and Collaboration in Central China, 1938-40." In Opium Regimes, ed. Timothy Brook and Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, pp. 323—43.
"The Creation of the Reformed Government in Central China, 1938." In Chinese Collaboration with Japan, 1932-1945: The Limits of Accommodation, ed. David Barrett and Larry Shyu, pp. 79—101. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000.
"Xu Guangqi in his Context: The World of the Shanghai Gentry." In Statecraft and Intellectual Renewal in Late Ming China: The Cross-Cultural Synthesis of Xu Guangqi, ed. Catherine Jami, Pieter Engelfriet, and Gregory Blue, pp. 72—98. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2001.
"The Pacification of Jiading." In Scars of War: The Impact of Warfare on Modern China, ed. Diana Lary and Stephen MacKinnon, pp. 50—74. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2001.
"Japan in the Late Ming: The View from Shanghai." In Sagacious Monks and Bloodthirsty War-riors: Chinese Views of Japan in the Ming-Qing Period, edited by Joshua A. Fogel, pp. 42—62. Norwalk CT: EastBridge, 2002.
"Smoking in Imperial China." In Smoke: A Global History of Smoking, ed. Sander Gilman and Zhuo Xun. London: Reaktion Books, 2004.
"The Great Way Government of Shanghai." In In the Shadow of the Rising Sun: Shanghai under Japanese Occupation, ed. Christian Henriot and Wen-hsin Yeh. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
"Institution." In Critical Terms for the Study of Buddhism, ed. Donald Lopez. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Journal articles
Last updated October 2004.
"The Teaching of History to Foreign Students at Peking University." With René Wagner. China Quarterly, no. 71 (Sept. 1977), pp. 598—607.
"Dying Gods in China: Religion since the Cultural Revolution." Commonweal 105:15 (4 August 1978), pp. 490—95.
"Traveling to the Trigram Mountains: Buddhism after the Gang of Four." Contemporary China 2:4 (Winter 1978), pp. 70—75.
"The Revival of China's Musical Culture." China Quarterly, no. 77 (March 1979), pp. 113—21.
"The Merchant Network in Sixteenth Century China." Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 24:2 (May 1981), pp. 165—214.
"Guides for Vexed Travelers: Route Books in the Ming and Qing." 3 pts. Ch'ing-shih wen-t'i 4:5 (June 1981), pp. 32—76; 4:6 (December 1981), pp. 130—40; 4:8 (December 1982), pp. 96—109.
"The Spatial Structure of Ming Local Administration." Late Imperial China 6:1 (June 1985), 1-55.
"Censorship in Eighteenth-Century China: A View from the Book Trade." Canadian Journal of History 23:2 (August 1988), pp. 177—96.
"Funerary Ritual and the Building of Lineages in Late Imperial China." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 49:2 (December 1989), pp. 465—99.
"Rethinking Syncretism: The Unity of the Three Teachings and their Joint Worship in Late- Imperial China." Journal of Chinese Religions, no. 21 (Fall 1993), pp. 13—44.
"Differing Agendas: China and the Human Rights Treaties." China Rights Forum, Winter 1993, pp. 16—19.
"Mapping Knowledge in the Sixteenth Century: The Gazetteer Cartography of Ye Chunji." The East Asian Library Journal 7:2 (Autumn 1994), pp. 5—32.
"Weber, Mencius, and the History of Chinese Capitalism." Asian Perspective 19:1 (1995), 79-98.
"The Sinology of Joseph Needham." Modern China 22:3 (July 1996), pp. 340—48.
"Edifying Knowledge: The Building of School Libraries in Ming China." Late Imperial China 17:1 (June 1996), pp. 88—114.
"Medievality and the Chinese Sense of History." Medieval History Journal 1:1 (1998), pp. 145—64.
"Picturing Clunas: A Review Essay." Ming Studies 40 (spring 1999), pp. 117—24.
"The Tokyo Judgment and the Rape of Nanking." The Journal of Asia Studies 60:3(August 2001), pp. 673—700.
"Is Smoking Chinese?" Ex/Change: Newsletter of Centre for Cross-Cultural Studies (City Univer- sity of Hong Kong), no. 3 (February 2002), pp. 4—6.
"Ming-Qing shiqi de guojia tushu jiancha yu tushu maoyi" (State censorship and the book trade in the Ming-Qing period). Shilin (Historical review, published by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences), 2003, no. 3, pp. 90—104.
"Mingdai de haishang maoyi yu lushang yichuan xitong" (The Ming system of maritime trade and overland postal communication). Lishi (Historical Monthly), no. 189 (5 Oct. 2003), pp. 58—65.
"Mingdai de daoyou shu" (Travel guides in the Ming dynasty). Lishi, no. 189 (5 Oct 2003), p. 144.
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. The book was described as a "bold, original and compulsively readable work of history."
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.
