Richard von Glahn is Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he has taught Chinese and world history since 1987. His primary field of research is the economic history of premodern China, with a particular focus on the period 1000–1700. He has previously published three monographs in Chinese history, including Fountain of Fortune: Money and Monetary Policy in China, 1000–1700 (1996) and The Sinister Way: The Divine and the Demonic in Chinese Religious Culture (2004), several edited books, and a co-authored textbook in world history, Crossroads and Cultures: A History of the World (2012). The present book has been supported by fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Guggenheim Foundation. Von Glahn's current research focuses on monetary and commercial circulation in maritime East Asia from the eighth to the seventeenth centuries.
