Joseph W. Esherick was born in California in 1942, received his B.A. summa cum laude from Harvard in 1964 and his PhD from Berkeley in 1971. His scholarship has focused on the last years of the Qing dynasty and the social and political transformation of modern China. His books include Reform and Revolution in China: the 1911 Revolution in Hunan and Hubei (University of California Press, 1976); The Origins of the Boxer Uprising (University of California Press, 1987; winner of John K. Fairbank Prize of the American Historical Association and the Joseph R. Levenson Prize of the Association for Asian Studies); and Ancestral Leaves, A Family Journey through Chinese History (University of California Press, 2011). After teaching for two decades at the University of Oregon, Esherick moved to the University of California at San Diego in 1990 to serve as Hsiu Professor in chinese Studies. He has lived, taught, and conducted research in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan, and served twice as director of the University of California Education Abroad Program at Peking University (1994-95 and 2010-11). Esherick retired in 2012 and now lives in Berkeley, California.