C. Patterson Giersch

C. Patterson (Pat) Giersch is a historian of modern China and Inner Asia. He earned his Ph.D. at Yale University and is a professor at Wellesley College. In his early work, he sought to understand the early modern origins of China's ethnic diversity, a project culminating in a book on conquest, migration, and cultural encounters in China's Southwest. Over the years, Pat has continued to travel widely in frontier China while investigating the transnational caravan businesses that once plied routes across South China and Southeast Asia, from Lhasa to Rangoon. This research is revealed in his new book, Corporate Conquests (2020), which examines the intersection of private business, state-led development, and the production of economic inequality in China's diverse borderlands.