Exeter historian appointed to editorial board of prestigious journal

A revered expert on British imperialism in Asia has been appointed to one of the country’s most prestigious historical journals.

Dr Hao Gao, a Senior Lecturer in the University’s Department of Archaeology and History, has joined the Editorial Board for Transactions of the Royal Historical Society.

Founded in 1868, Transactions is one of the oldest and best-known journals in its field and the flagship publication of the UK’s foremost historical society.

Dr Gao was chosen ahead of 50 academics for the position.

“I was thrilled to hear that I had been chosen for the Board,” said Dr Gao, who joined the University in 2015. “I didn’t expect that this would happen, but at the same time, I was confident that I could bring something unique to the journal and the Royal Historical Society.

“As one of the few historians of Chinese origin who have a permanent position in a UK history department, I believe that my distinctive research profile and personal background would contribute meaningful intellectual diversity to the journal’s Editorial Board, ensuring it better reflects the breadth of historical interests and backgrounds within the Society and our wider profession.”

As a member of the Editorial Board, Dr Gao will provide academic support to the journal’s editors, helping to increase its scope and scale, and further enhance its profile and reputation. He will also act as an ambassador for the journal and the society, representing them at events in the UK and worldwide.

Dr Gao specialises in the historical fields of British imperialism in Asia; China in relation to global history; and the encounters between the British and Chinese empires in the 18th and 19th centuries. This includes exploring the mutual understandings – and misunderstandings – between China and the West in the early processes of globalisation.

One of the few historians in the UK able to publish academically and engage the public in both English and Chinese, Dr Gao’s 2020 book, Creating the Opium War: British Imperial Attitudes towards China, 1792-1840, was the first to bring together the political history of China’s western relations with cultural studies of British representations of China.

“Not only does this position enable me to represent better my own research field and Asian-origin historians in the UK,” Dr Gao adds, “but I can also serve as a bridge between UK academia and its Chinese/Asian counterpart.

“Hopefully, I will have the chance to represent both in their dialogue with one another. I believe such dialogues would be extremely meaningful in our current world.”