Center for the History of Global Development

James Lin

James Lin is a historian of modern China and the US. He received his B.A. from UC Berkeley, M.A. from Columbia University, and will receive his Ph.D. in History in 2017 from UC Berkeley. In Fall 2017 he will start as Assistant Professor of International Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle.

James Lin broadly works on the history of development, international and global history, the history of ideas and economic thought, and history of science and technology.

His research focuses on the history of international agrarian development. His current book manuscript examines how ideas of famine relief in early 20th century China evolved into famine prevention, thus forming the basis for agrarian development. He then follows how these ideas became packaged into a model of international development that was later carried out by agricultural scientists, land economists, and technocrats across China and the global South in the postwar era.

Project: Sowing Seeds and Knowledge: Agrarian Development