Professor Lawrence Zhang is a historian of late imperial and modern China. His first book, Power for a Price: The Purchase of Appointments in Qing China, published with the Harvard University Asia Center in 2023, is about the system of office purchase in Qing China through which individuals could buy positions in the government with cash. The book was selected as an honourable mention for the 2024 Joseph Levenson Prize for books on Pre-1900 China. He is currently working on a book manuscript on the history of the tea industry in Taiwan.

Research Interests

Late imperial and modern Chinese history; social mobility in China; office purchase in China; history of tea in East Asia.

Representative Publications

“A Foreign Infusion: The Forgotten Legacy of Japanese chadō in Modern Chinese Tea Arts.” Gastronomica February 2016.

“The Legacy of Success: Office Purchase and State-Elite Relationship in Qing China.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 73:2, (Dec 2013), pp. 259-97.

Power for a Price: The Purchase of Government Appointments in Qing China. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2022.

“Locating Meritocracy in Early Modern Asia: Qing China and Mughal India.” Co-authored with Sudev Sheth in Making Meritocracy in China and India, eds. Michael Szonyi and Tarun Khanna. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022.

“Shangyu tiaoli and the Study of Qing Central Government Legislative Agenda.” Co-authored with Li Chong. Late Imperial China 44:2, (Dec 2023), pp. 1-23.