Chinese cadets in full battle dress on parade somewhere in China, July 11, 1940. (AP Photo)

The Wiles Lectures for 2014 were delivered by Professor Rana Mitter (Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China at the University of Oxford) on 28-31 May 2014.

Professor Mitter's Wiles lectures were given over four days at Queen's University Belfast, on the theme:

'Fighting fate: wartime society and the making of modern China, 1937-1945'

Rana Mitter is Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China at the University of Oxford, and a fellow of St Cross College. His research specialism is the emergence of nationalism in modern China, both in the early twentieth century and in the contemporary era. He is particularly interested in the impact of China's war with Japan in the 1930s and 1940s on the development of Chinese politics, society, and culture. He is the author of numerous books, including The Manchurian Myth: Nationalism, Resistance, and Collaboration in Modern China (University of California Press, 2000), Modern China: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2008) and, most recently, China's War with Japan, 1937-1945: The Struggle for Survival  (Allen Lane, 2013). He is also a frequest broadcaster on BBC radio.

Lecture 1: Washington, Moscow, London … Chongqing?: the unknown Allied war capital

Lecture 2: Chongqing: the moulding of a new society

Lecture 3: Postwar – Asia 1945 and China’s 'zero hour'

Lecture 4: Remembering and forgetting Chongqing: wartime memory and 21st century China

The lectures were published as Rana Mitter, China's Good War: How World War II is Shaping a New Nationalism (Harvard University Press, 2020).