In this special lecture to coincide with the release of his new book Great State: China and the World, Timothy Brook examines China’s relationship with the world from the Yuan through to the present by following the stories of ordinary and extraordinary people navigating the spaces where China met and meets the world. Bureaucrats, horse traders, spiritual leaders, explorers, pirates, emperors, invaders, migrant workers, traitors, and visionaries: this is a history of China as no one has told it before.

Timothy Brook is professor of history at the University of British Columbia and the general editor of Harvard University Press’ History of Imperial China. He is the author of eight books on Chinese history, including Vermeer’s Hat and Mr Selden’s Map of China.