I am a historian of early modern and modern China. My primary research interests are political culture and law, with a particular focus on state formation in pre-modern and modern China. My current project explores the construction of administrative organization and operations in mid seventeenth-century Qing China. Drawing on Chinese- and Manchu-language archives, I argue against the received wisdom that the Manchus copied Ming institutions and adopted Chinese ruling practices, and show that they created anew a system of ruling and administrative practices that were codified into law in the making of a multiethnic empire. The results of this research will be published in two books. The first explores the Manchu construction of political solidarity and administrative order, and the second explains why the Manchus were more successful in this endeavor than other nomadic conquerors. Together, these two books address one of the most enduring questions of early modern Chinese history: how did the Manchus conquer and rule? More broadly, they explore themes of law and empire and the role of nomadic conquerors in world history.
