I first visited China in 1992. Studying in the Manchurian city of Harbin, I saw a grim, post-industrial present but a remarkably vibrant past that opened windows onto the ways that Chinese and western cultures had influenced one another to create something unique.

Since then, in my training at Yale and my work as a professor of History at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, I have explored the interaction between China and the West, focusing my writing, teaching, and research not on big stories and great leaders but on smaller moments. The travels of a Buddhist monk from Manchuria to Hong Kong. Basketball games turned violent at the Harbin YMCA in the 1920s. Most recently, the Shanghai Champions’ Stakes of 1941