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Joanna Waley-Cohen
Eleanor Joanna Waley-Cohen (born 10 June 1952) is an English academic who is Silver Professor of History at New York University, where she has taught Chinese history since 1992. She served as Provost of New York University Shanghai from 2014 to 2025, the University's chief academic officer, setting the university's academic strategy and priorities, and overseeing academic appointments, research, and faculty affairs.
Her research interests include early modern Chinese history, especially the Qing dynasty; China and the West; and Chinese imperial culture, especially in the Qianlong era; warfare in China and Inner Asia; Chinese culinary history.
Waley-Cohen was born in 1952 at Westminster Hospital in London, the daughter of Sir Bernard Waley-Cohen, Baronet and Hon. Joyce Nathan. She was born into a prominent Anglo-Jewish family, the granddaughter of Sir Robert Waley Cohen and Lord Nathan.
Waley-Cohen received her B.A. and M.A. degrees in Chinese Studies from Cambridge University, then took a degree in law. When she moved with her husband to the United States, she could not practice law, and enrolled in the Ph.D. program at Yale University, receiving her degree in 1987.[citation needed]
Waley-Cohen's books include The Culture of War in China: Empire and the Military under the Qing Dynasty (I.B. Tauris, 2006); The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in Chinese History (W.W. Norton, 1999); and Exile in Mid-Qing China: Banishment to Xinjiang, 1758-1820 (Yale University Press, 1991). Her current[when?] scholarly projects include a revised history of imperialism in China, a study of daily life in China c.1800, and a history of culinary culture in early modern China.
Nicholas D. Kristof welcomed Sextants in the New York Times as "sensibly organized and engagingly told" but "In the end, I disagreed with much of the thesis of this book, but that is not to say that I disliked it. On the contrary, I probably liked it more for disagreeing with it. Partly because of the boldness of the argument, it is stimulating and refreshing..."
Her 2003 article "New Qing History" summarized American revisionist scholarship in history of the Qing dynasty and gave it the name New Qing History which has come into widespread use. [citation needed]
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Joanna Waley-Cohen
Eleanor Joanna Waley-Cohen (born 10 June 1952) is an English academic who is Silver Professor of History at New York University, where she has taught Chinese history since 1992. She served as Provost of New York University Shanghai from 2014 to 2025, the University's chief academic officer, setting the university's academic strategy and priorities, and overseeing academic appointments, research, and faculty affairs.
Her research interests include early modern Chinese history, especially the Qing dynasty; China and the West; and Chinese imperial culture, especially in the Qianlong era; warfare in China and Inner Asia; Chinese culinary history.
Waley-Cohen was born in 1952 at Westminster Hospital in London, the daughter of Sir Bernard Waley-Cohen, Baronet and Hon. Joyce Nathan. She was born into a prominent Anglo-Jewish family, the granddaughter of Sir Robert Waley Cohen and Lord Nathan.
Waley-Cohen received her B.A. and M.A. degrees in Chinese Studies from Cambridge University, then took a degree in law. When she moved with her husband to the United States, she could not practice law, and enrolled in the Ph.D. program at Yale University, receiving her degree in 1987.[citation needed]
Waley-Cohen's books include The Culture of War in China: Empire and the Military under the Qing Dynasty (I.B. Tauris, 2006); The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in Chinese History (W.W. Norton, 1999); and Exile in Mid-Qing China: Banishment to Xinjiang, 1758-1820 (Yale University Press, 1991). Her current[when?] scholarly projects include a revised history of imperialism in China, a study of daily life in China c.1800, and a history of culinary culture in early modern China.
Nicholas D. Kristof welcomed Sextants in the New York Times as "sensibly organized and engagingly told" but "In the end, I disagreed with much of the thesis of this book, but that is not to say that I disliked it. On the contrary, I probably liked it more for disagreeing with it. Partly because of the boldness of the argument, it is stimulating and refreshing..."
Her 2003 article "New Qing History" summarized American revisionist scholarship in history of the Qing dynasty and gave it the name New Qing History which has come into widespread use. [citation needed]