Christopher P. Atwood


Christopher Pratt Atwood is an American scholar of Mongolian and Chinese history. Currently the Chair of the University of Pennsylvania's East Asian Languages and Civilizations Department, he has authored six books and published more than 100 articles on a wide variety of topics. Historian Timothy May described him as a leading scholar of Mongolian studies in Western Hemisphere.
Atwood is a recipient of the Order of the Polar Star, awarded by the President of Mongolia and Onon Prize, awarded by the University of Cambridge Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit, and holds honorary doctorates from the Mongolian Academy of Sciences and the National University of Mongolia.

Education

Christopher Atwood received a Bachelor's degree at Harvard University, where he studied Tibetan, Mongolian and Chinese. He holds a Master's from Indiana University Bloomington, where he also obtained Ph.D. in Mongolian Studies, History and East Asian Languages and Cultures.

Career

Early in his career, Atwood worked for U.S. State Department and was a visiting scholar at Inner Mongolia University. He later taught at Indiana University from 1996 to 2016, serving as department chair and interim director of the Center for Languages of the Central Asian Region. In 2016, he joined the University of Pennsylvania, where he is Chair of the East Asian Languages and Civilizations Department. He has been actively interviewed by and consulted with the US government, American, Asian and European universities, international academic and professional associations and media on modern affairs and history and cultural aspects of Mongolia and China. His colleague, the historian Timothy May, described him as a leading scholar of Mongolian studies in Western Hemisphere.
Atwood was awarded Honorary doctorate of National University of Mongolia in 2019 and Honorary Doctorate, conferred by the Institute of History, Academy of Sciences of Mongolia, in 2011 for his significant contributions to Mongolian studies. The President of Mongolia awarded him the Order of the Polar Star on July 11, 2011. His work and contributions were recognized by several institutions, including Onon Prize by the University of Cambridge, Teaching Excellence Recognition Award ; Indiana University Trustees Teaching Award ; John G. Hangin Memorial Prize for Mongolian Studies; Denis Sinor Prize for best graduate paper in the Central Eurasian Studies Department.
He has authored six books and published more than 100 articles and chapters in areas of history, ethnography, linguistics and politics. His book Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire was widely praised by scholars and readers interested in Asian history.
Based on Christopher Atwood's new translation of The Secret History of the Mongols, a docuseries titled "Genghis Khan: The Secret History of the Mongols" was released on 1 May 2025.

Books

  • The Secret History of the Mongols, Penguin Classics, 2023.
  • The Rise of the Mongols: Five Chinese Sources. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2021.
  • co-edited with Timothy May and Bayarsaikhan Dashdondog. New Approaches to Ilkhanid History, doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004438217
  • . New York : Facts on File, 2004.
  • Young Mongols and Vigilantes in Inner Mongolia's Interregnum Decades, 1911-1931, doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004531291
  • co-edited with Ákos Bertalan Apatóczky. Philology of the Grasslands, doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004351981

    Selected articles and chapters

  • “,” in The Cambridge History of the Mongol Empire, edited by Michal Biran and Hodong Kim, 107–80. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023.
  • "Arctic Ivory and the Routes North from the Tang to the Mongol Empires." Quaderni di Studi Indo-Mediterranei no. 12 : 471-502.
  • “.” The Middle Kingdom and the Dharma Wheel, 2016, 278–321. doi:10.1163/9789004322585_007.
  • “.” Inner Asia 17, 2015:293-349. DOI:10.1163/22105018-12340046
  • "" Journal of Song-Yuan Studies 45, 2015, pp. 239–278. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/sys.2015.0006
  • "." in How Mongolia Matters: War, Law, and Society, pp. 35–56. Brill, 2017.
  • "" International Journal of Eurasian Studies 2, 2015.
  • "." Mongolian Studies 34 : 1-76.
  • "," in ノモンハン事件（ハルハ河会戦）70周年 2009年ウランバートル国際シンポジウム 報告論文集 , ed. Junko IMANISHI今西淳子 and Borjigin HUSEL, pp. 385–92. Tokyo: Fūkyōsha, 2010.
  • "." Rashīd al-Dīn as an agent and mediator of cultural exchanges in Ilkhanid Iran : 223-50.
  • ".".
  • "." Miscellanea Asiatica: Festschrift in Honour of Françoise Aubin : 593-621.
  • ",’ in D. Sneath, Imperial Statecraft, 141-74.
  • "" The International History Review 26, no. 2 : 237-256.
  • "." Twentieth-Century China 25, no. 2 : 75-113.
  • "." In Mongolia in the Twentieth Century, pp. 137–161. Routledge, 2015
  • “.” Imperial Statecraft. Political Forms and Techniques of Governance, 2006.
  • “.” Inner Asia 5, no. 1 : 65–91. doi:10.1163/146481703793647424.
  • “” Journal of Asian History, 1992.
  • “.” Indiana University East Asian Working Paper Series on Language and Politics in modern China, 1994.