Stephen R. Platt

Stephen R. Platt
Occupation(s)	Author, historian
Employer	University of Massachusetts Amherst

Stephen R. Platt is an American historian and writer. He is currently a professor of Chinese history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. ^[1]

Early life and education

Platt holds a PhD in Chinese history from Yale University (2004). His area of expertise is in modern China, especially in the nineteenth century and the Qing dynasty's foreign relations. ^[2]

Writing career

In 2007 he published Provincial Patriots: The Hunanese and Modern China. ^[3]

Platt's books Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom and Imperial Twilight examine East-West relations in China during the 19th century, focusing on the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864) and the period leading up the First Opium War (1800-1842).^{[ citation needed ]}

He published Imperial Twilight in 2018, and Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom in 2012. ^[3]

Platt has also written for The New York Times , Chinafile, The Atlantic , The Wall Street Journal , and Late Imperial China . ^[3]

Awards and honors

• 2004 Theron Rockwell Field Prize (Yale University) for dissertation Hunanese Nationalism and the Revival of Wang Fuzhi, 1839-1923 ^[4]
• 2012 Cundill Prize in History winner for Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom ^[5]
• 2018 Baillie Gifford Prize shortlist for Imperial Twilight ^[6]

Bibliography

• Provincial Patriots: The Hunanese and Modern China  (Harvard University Press, 2007).
• Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom: China, the West, and the Epic Story of the Taiping Civil War (Knopf, 2012)
• Imperial Twilight: The Opium War and the End of China's Last Golden Age (Alfred A. Knopf, 2018)
• The Raider: The Untold Story of a Renegade Marine and the Birth of U.S. Special Forces in World War II (Knopf, 2025)

References

1. Steve Pfarrer (May 10, 2018). "'I write what I would love to read': Award-winning historian Stephen Platt pens new book on the 19th-century Opium War". Daily Hampshire Gazette . Retrieved October 3, 2018.
2. "Stephen Platt - History - UMass Amherst". www.umass.edu.
3. "Stephen R. Platt". umass.edu. University of Massachusetts Amherst. Retrieved January 23, 2020.
4. "Porter and Field Prize Winner History". Yale University. Retrieved October 24, 2024.
5. "University of Massachusetts historian Stephen Platt receives prestigious Cundill Prize". The Republican. January 1, 2013.
6. "The Baillie Gifford Prize 2018 announces shortlist". Baillie Gifford Prize. October 2, 2018. Retrieved October 3, 2018.

External links

• Stephen R. Platt Biography