Founding Director of the Insitute of Country and Region Studies

He is a Boya Chair Professor at Peking University, Professor of History, and a Fellow of the British Royal Historical Society. His research encompasses world modernization, European history, and the history of major global powers.

His works include Towards Modern States; The First Industrial Nation; In Between Tradition and Transformation: the Origins of British Cultural Patterns; The Industrial Revolution and the English Working Class; A History of England; The Twentieth –Century Britain; A Brief History of World Modernization. He also served as academic supervisor for CCTV’s 12-episode TV documentary The Rise of the Great Powers.