Rana Mitter is University Lecturer in the History and Politics of Modern China at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of St Cross College.  He is the author of The Manchurian Myth: Nationalism, Resistance and Collaboration in Modern China (California, 2000) and A Bitter Revolution: China’s Struggle with the Modern World (Oxford, 2004), for which he was named Young Academic Author of the Year by the Times Higher Education Supplement in 2005; in the same year, the book was also runner-up for the Longman/History Today Book of the Year Award,  a finalist for the British Academy Book Prize, and named by Foreign Affairs as a “must-read” notable book on China.  His latest book is Modern China: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2008).  He is currently directing a major 5-year research programme on the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-45, funded by the Leverhulme Trust. 

He is also a presenter on the culture and ideas programme Night Waves on BBC Radio 3, as well as commenting regularly on Chinese politics and history on radio and television. His essays and reviews have appeared in publications including the London Review of Books, Financial Times, and History Today.