#  Elizabeth J. Perry 

 



   ![Elizabeth J. Perry](/sites/g/files/omnuum8556/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/elizabethperry/files/elizabeth-perry.jpg?itok=Mhhwfijg) 

 

Elizabeth J. Perry is Henry Rosovsky Professor of Government at Harvard University. She holds a PhD in political science from the University of Michigan and served as Director of Harvard’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies (1999-2003), President of the Association for Asian Studies (2007-2008) and Director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute (2008-2024). Her research focuses on the history of the Chinese revolution and its implications for contemporary Chinese politics. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a corresponding fellow of the British Academy, Professor Perry is the author or editor of more than 20 books including, most recently, *Mao’s Invisible Hand: The Political Foundations of Adaptive Governance in China* (Harvard, 2011); *Anyuan: Mining China’s Revolutionary Tradition* (California, 2012); *What is the Best Kind of History?* (Zhejiang, 2015); *Beyond Regimes: China and India Compared* (Harvard, 2018); *Similar yet Different: Case Studies of China’s Modern Christian Colleges* (Zhejiang, 2019); and *Ruling by Other Means: State-Mobilized Movements* (Cambridge, 2020). Her book, *Shanghai on Strike: The Politics of Chinese Labor* (Stanford, 1993) received the John King Fairbank Prize of the American Historical Association; her article, “Chinese Conceptions of ‘Rights’: From Mencius to Mao – and Now” (*Perspectives on Politics*, 2008) received the Heinz I. Eulau Prize of the American Political Science Association.