My research and teaching is centered around the social and cultural history of China from the Qing through to the present.  My interests include local history, rural north China, religion and the experience of revolution.  I am also increasingly interested in studying transnational history from a local perspective and in interactions between China, France and Italy.  Both of my most recent projects have been micro-histories and I have made extensive use of fieldwork in China, especially conducting oral history interviews and collecting village-level materials, as well as using more conventional archives and libraries.  I currently have three ongoing research projects.  The first is a microhistory of a Catholic village in Shanxi from its establishment in the late 17th century through to the 20th century.  The second is a study of the interpreters for the first British embassy to China in 1793, a story stretching from Gansu to Naples as well as London and Beijing.  The third is a large-scale study of personal experiences of the communist revolution in China, focusing on the years from 1948 to 1952 when the Communist Party actually took power across the country.  I have taught a seminar on this and am currently working on Chinese reactions to the dropping of the atomic bomb as part of this project..