# Elizabeth Perry (裴宜理) Member of the Advisory Council ![Elizabeth Perry](/sites/g/files/omnuum1371/files/styles/hwp_4_5__320x400/public/globalpoliticalthought/files/elizabeth-perry.jpg?itok=ytbXETA6) location\_on Harvard-Yenching Institute | 2 Divinity Avenue | Cambridge, MA 02138 email laptop\_windows [Elizabeth Perry's profile at Harvard University](https://scholar.harvard.edu/elizabethperry/home) laptop\_windows [Fairbank Centre for Chinese Studies](https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/profiles/elizabeth-j-perry/) Elizabeth J. Perry is a scholar of Chinese politics and history, currently the Henry Rosovsky Professor of Government at Harvard University and Director of the [Harvard-Yenching Institute](https://harvard-yenching.org/). Her scholarship explores the deep histories of the Chinese revolution and their implications for contemporary Chinese politics. Her more recent intellectual interventions include *Mao’s Invisible Hand: The Political Foundations of Adaptive Governance in China* (Harvard, 2011); [*Anyuan: Mining China’s Revolutionary Tradition* ](https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520271906/anyuan)(California, 2012); *What is the Best Kind of History?* \[什么是最好的历史学\] (Zhejiang, 2015); *Beyond Regimes: China and India Compared* (Harvard, 2018); *[Similar yet Different: Case Studies of China’s Modern Christian Colleges](https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%BC%82%E5%90%8C%E4%B9%8B%E9%97%B4%EF%BC%9A%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E8%BF%91%E4%BB%A3%E6%95%99%E4%BC%9A%E5%A4%A7%E5%AD%A6%E4%B8%AA%E6%A1%88%E7%A0%94%E7%A9%B6/51101166)* \[异同之间：中国近代教会大学个案研究\] (Zhejiang, 2019); and *[Ruling by Other Means: State-Mobilized Movements](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/ruling-by-other-means/3F6D5EACE42913D17859E50EE5D04393)* (Cambridge, 2020). Her other works on the past and legacy of the Chinese revolution, theory and practice of political economy, and the lived experiences of social transformations in modern China include *[Rebels and Revolutionaries in North China, 1845-1945](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Rebels_and_Revolutionaries_in_North_Chin/dSjM5O7C97gC?hl=en)* (Stanford, 1980), *[Challenging the Mandate of Heaven: Social Protest and State Power in China](https://www.routledge.com/Challenging-the-Mandate-of-Heaven-Social-Protest-and-State-Power-in-China/Perry/p/book/9780765604453)* (M.E. Sharpe, 2002), *[Patrolling the Revolution: Worker Militias, Citizenship and the Chinese State](https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780742539198/Patrolling-the-Revolution-Worker-Militias-Citizenship-and-the-Modern-Chinese-State)* (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), ["Reclaiming the Chinese Revolution"](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-asian-studies/article/abs/reclaiming-the-chinese-revolution/CD2A9837A645CFA94C41F45509719815) (Journal of Asian Studies 67(4): 1147-1164), [“Teaching Chinese Politics in Comparative Perspective”](http://prchistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/13_Perry_politics.pdf) (*The PRC History Review*, 4.2). Recently, she has also been working on[ "work teams"](http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n5354/pdf/ch52.pdf) (工作队) as [a sinicised governance practice in revolutionary China](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/comparative-studies-in-society-and-history/article/abs/making-communism-work-sinicizing-a-soviet-governance-practice/B46222FDEBF05BA314191D56AF429F89). Perry is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a corresponding fellow of the British Academy, and a former President of the Association for Asian Studies (2007) & Director of Harvard’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies (1999-2003). Her book, *Shanghai on Strike: The Politics of Chinese Labor* (Stanford, 1993) received the John King Fairbank Prize of the American Historical Association; her article, [“Chinese Conceptions of ‘Rights’: From Mencius to Mao – and Now”](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/abs/chinese-conceptions-of-rights-from-mencius-to-maoand-now/28003ACD49D65DA3DF57312A126B569B) (*Perspectives on Politics*, 2008) received the Heinz I. Eulau Prize of the American Political Science Association. A formidable voice for the importance of studying the tradition of Chinese politics, Perry has given her thoughts on [The Resilience of Chinese Communism: Lessons From History](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NhlgLxNryw) (Emory University), [The Cultural Foundations of Chinese Communism](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6fRrhxBt_A) (India-China Institute), [why study Chinese politics & society](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwsGwQhiYBg) (Yenching Academy, Peking University), [Asian Studies in Asia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFqEWJ_qACM), and her [introduction to a panel on Civil Society in East Asia ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgwQSYEJR9c)(Harvard-Yenching Institute). - ## People categories [Member of the Advisory Council](/people-categories/member-advisory-council)