Rana Mitter

Rana Shantashil Rajyeswar Mitter is a British historian and political scientist who specialises in the history of the People's Republic of China. He is ST Lee Chair in US-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Early life and education

Mitter, of Indian Bengali heritage, was born in Cambridge and grew up on the south coast of England, near Brighton. His parents were both academics; his father, Partha Mitter, taught art history at the University of Sussex and his mother, Swasti Mitter, was a professor at the University of Brighton. Mitter was educated at Lancing College and King's College, Cambridge, where he received BA, MPhil, and PhD ; in 1991 he was elected President of the Cambridge Union. He was a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard University.

Academic career

Until 2023 he was Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China at the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford, formerly director of Oxford's China Centre, and a Fellow and Vice-Master of St Cross College. His 2013 book China's War with Japan, 1937-1945: The Struggle for Survival, about the Second Sino-Japanese War, was well received by critics.
On 16 July 2015, he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy.
He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2019 Birthday Honours for services to education.
He has published several op-eds for The Guardian on contemporary China politics. He is also a regular presenter for Night Waves on BBC Radio.

Publications

Books

Critical studies, reviews and biography

Review of Out of China: How the Chinese Ended the Era of Western Domination.
Articles
The Real Roots of Xi Jinping Thought, Foreign Affairs, February 20, 2024