BOOKS
China after Mao: The Rise of a Superpower, London and New York: Bloomsbury, 416 pp., 2022.
How to be a Dictator: The Cult of Personality in the Twentieth Century, London and New York: Bloomsbury, 304 pp., 2019.
The Cultural Revolution: A People's History, 1962-1976, London and New York: Bloomsbury, 432 pp., 2016.
The Discourse of Race in Modern China, Revised and Expanded Second Edition, New York: Oxford University Press; London: Hurst, 219 pp., 2015.
The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution, 1945-1957, London and New York: Bloomsbury, 400 pp., 2013.
Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, London: Bloomsbury; New York: Walker Books, 448 pp., 2010.
The Age of Openness: China before Mao, Berkeley: University of California Press; Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 128 pp., 2008 (paperback).
Exotic Commodities: Modern Objects and Everyday Life in China, New York: Columbia University Press; also published as Things modern: Material culture and everyday life in China, London: Hurst, 382 pp., 2007 (cased).
Narcotic Culture: A History of Drugs in China, co-authored with Lars Laamann and Zhou Xun, Chicago: University of Chicago Press; London: Hurst; Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 319 pp., 2004 (cased).
'Patient Zero': China and the Myth of the Opium Plague, London: School of Oriental and African Studies, Inaugural Lecture Series, 22 pp., 2003 (download this item by clicking here).
Crime, Punishment and the Prison in Modern China, New York: Columbia University Press; London: Hurst; Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 456 pp., 2002 (cased); transl. in Chinese as Feng Ke, Zhongguo jianyu shi, Nanjing: Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 2005.
Imperfect Conceptions: Medical Knowledge, Birth Defects and Eugenics in China, New York: Columbia University Press; London: Hurst, 226 pp., 1998 (cased).
Sex, Culture and Modernity in China: Medical Science and the Construction of Sexual Identities in the Early Republican Period, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press; London: Hurst; Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 233 pp., 1995 (cased and paperback).
The Discourse of Race in Modern China, Stanford: Stanford University Press; London: Hurst; Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 251 pp., 1992 (cased; paperback 1994); transl. in Chinese as Feng Ke, Jindai Zhongguo zhi zhongzu guannian, Nanjing: Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 229 pp., 1999.
EDITED BOOKS
Cultures of Confinement: The History of the Prison in Asia, Africa and Latin America, co-edited with Ian Brown, Ithaca: Cornell University Press; London: Hurst, 335 pp., 2007 (cased).
The Construction of Racial Identities in China and Japan: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, edited by Frank Dikötter, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press; London: Hurst; Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press; Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 217 pp., 1997 (cased and paperback).
ARTICLES IN REFEREED JOURNALS
'Chinese Society amid Mao's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution', Forum on Frank Dikötter's The Cultural Revolution with reply by the author', Journal of Cold War Studies, 21, no. 2 (Spring 2019), pp. 1-23.
'History as Humanity's CV: A Conversation with Frank Dikötter', co-authored with Qin Shao, The Chinese Historical Review, 24, no. 2 (November 2017), pp. 166-82 (download this item by clicking here).
'The Silent Revolution: Decollectivisation from Below during the Cultural Revolution', China Quarterly, no. 227 (September 2016), pp. 796-811.
'Coping with Famine in Communist China, 1949-1962', European Review of History, 22, no. 6 (December 2015), pp. 917-28.
'Forging National Unity: Ideas of Race in China', Global Dialogue, 12, no. 2 (Autumn 2010), pp. 23-35.
'The racialization of the globe: An interactive interpretation', Ethnic and Racial Studies, 31, no. 8 (Nov. 2008), pp. 1478-1496 (download this article by clicking here).
'"A paradise for rascals": Colonialism, punishment and the prison in Hong Kong (1841-1898)', Crime, History and Societies, 8, no 1 (summer 2004), pp. 49-63 (download this article by clicking here).
'The emergence of labour camps in Shandong province, 1942-1950', China Quarterly, no. 175 (September 2003), pp. 803-17 (download this article by clicking here).
'A history of the syringe in modern China', Twentieth-Century China, 28, no. 1 (November 2002), pp. 37-56.
'Narcotic culture: A social history of drug consumption in China', co-authored with Lars Laamann and Zhou Xun, British Journal of Criminology, vol. 42, no. 2 (spring 2002), pp. 317-36.
'The promise of repentance: Prison reform in modern China', British Journal of Criminology, vol. 42, no. 2 (spring 2002), pp. 240-49.
'Crime and punishment in early republican China: Beijing's first model prison, 1912-1922', Late Imperial China, 21, no. 1 (December 2000), pp. 140-62 (download this article by clicking here).
'Science médicale et criminalité en Chine', Equinoxe. Revue de Sciences Humaines, no. 22 (Fall 1999), pp. 133-43.
'Reading the body: Genetic knowledge and social marginalisation in the PRC', China Information, 13, nos 2-3 (December 1998), pp. 1-13 (download this article by clicking here).
'Race culture: Recent perspectives on the history of eugenics', American Historical Review, 103, no. 2 (April 1998), pp. 467-78 (download this article by clicking here).
'Racial nationalism in China', Jindai Zhongguo shi yanjiu tongxun (Newsletter for Modern Chinese History) no. 24 (September 1997), pp. 54-72.
'Crime and punishment in post-liberation China: The prisoners of a Beijing gaol in the 1950s', China Quarterly, no. 149 (March 1997), pp. 147-59 (download this article by clicking here).
'Culture, "race" and nation: The formation of national identity in twentieth-century China', Journal of International Affairs, 49, no. 2 (January 1996), pp. 590-65.
'Nationalism and sexuality in China', Itinerario, 18, no. 2 (September 1994), pp. 10-21.
'Racial identities in China: Context and meaning', China Quarterly, no. 138 (June 1994), pp. 404-412 (download this article by clicking here).
'Sexualité, discipline et modernité en Chine', Equinoxe. Revue de Sciences Humaines, no. 11 (April 1994), pp. 171-183.
'Sexually transmitted diseases in modern China: A historical survey', Genitourinary Medicine, no. 69 (October 1993), pp. 341-45.
'Racial discourse in modern China', Bulletin of the British Association for Chinese Studies (Summer 1992), pp. 24-31.
'The limits of benevolence: Wang Shiduo (1802-1889) and population control', Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 55, no. 1 (February 1992), pp. 110-15.
'The discourse of race and the medicalization of public and private space in modern China (1895-1949)', History of Science, 29, part 4, no. 86 (December 1991), pp. 411-20.
'Group definition and the idea of "race" in modern China (1793-1949)', Ethnic and Racial Studies, 13, no. 3 (July 1990), pp. 421-32.
'Eugenics in Republican China', Republican China, 15, no. 1 (November 1989), pp. 1-17.
CHAPTERS IN BOOKS
'Mass Killings under Mao' in Ben Kiernan (ed.), The Cambridge World History of Genocide, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022 (in press).
'The Discourse of Race in Modern China' in Jon Solomos (ed.), The Routledge Encyclopedia of Race and Racism, London: Routledge, 2022 (in press).
'Diktator Werden', NZZ Geschichte: Diktators, Zürich: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, pp. 24-39, 2022.
'The Discourse of Race in China' in Volker Roelcke and Heinz Schott (eds), 'Andersartigkeit' und Identität in menschlichen Gesellschaften, Halle: Acta Historica Leopoldina, 2020, pp. 71-80.
'Race' in Howard Chiang and Hsiu-fen Chen (eds), China and the Human Sciences: 1600 to the Present, Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2019, pp. 145-61.
'Mao Zedong yu geren chongbai' (Mao Zedong and the cult of personality) in Xiong Jingming and Yu Guoliang (eds), Zhongwai xuezhe tan wenge (Chinese and foreign scholars debate the Cultural Revolution), Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 2018, pp. 273-85.
'The Second Society' in Sebastian Veg (ed.), Popular Memories of the Mao Era, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2018, pp. 183-98.
'Wie und warum wurde 'Rasse' zu einem globalen Begriff?' in Christian Geulen et al. (eds), Rasse, Schicksal und Methode, Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 2018, pp. 131-50.
'The History of Racial Theories in China' in Paul C. Taylor, Linda Alcoff and Luvell Anderson (eds), The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Race, London: Routledge, 2017, pp. 168-80.
'Un monde en verre: La Chine' in Sylvain Venayre and Pierre Singaravélou (eds), L'Histoire du monde au XIXe siècle, Paris: Fayard, 2017, pp. 496-500.
'Jindai Zhongguo de wuzhi wenhua' (Material culture in modern China) in Fudan daxue lishi xuexi (eds), Jindai Zhongguo de wuzhi wenhua (Material culture in modern China), Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2016, pp. 216-52.
'Da jihuang de shizuoyongzhe he xishengzhe' (Perpetrators and victims during Mao's Great Famine)', Ren xiangshi de niandai (The Great Famine), Washington, DC: Laogai Foundation, 2013, pp. 77-100.
'The Rise and Fall of Openness in China since 1911' in Fang-shang Lü (ed.), The Republic of China: A Centennial History, Taipei: Academia Historica, 2012, pp. 250-59.
'Racial Discourse in Twentieth-Century China' in Rotem Kowner and Walter Demel (eds), Race and Racism in Modern East Asia: Western Constructions and Eastern Reactions, Leiden: Brill, 2012, pp. 351-68.
'The Racialisation of the Globe: Historical Perspectives' in Manfred Berg (ed.), Racism in the Modern World: Historical Perspectives on Cultural Transfer and Adaptation, Heidelberg: Berghahn Books, 2011, pp. 20-40.
'Objects and agency: Material culture and modernity in China' in Karen Harvey (ed.), History and material culture, London: Routledge, 2009, pp. 158-172.
'Rassendiskurs in China' in Bea Gomes, Walter Schicho and Arno Sonderegger (eds): Rassismus: Beiträge zu einem vielgesichtigen Phänomen, Wien: Mandelbaum, 2008, pp. 119-149.
'China, British imperialism, and the myth of the "opium plague"', co-authored with Lars Laamann and Zhou Xun, in James Mills (ed.), Drugs and empires, Houndsmill: Palgrave, 2007, pp. 19-38.
'Prisons and imprisonment: Chinese law' in Stanley N. Katz (ed.), Encyclopedia of legal history, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
'Kang Youwei' in Justin Wintle (ed.), New makers of modern culture, London: Routledge, 2006.
'Minguo shiqi de modeng wanyi, wenhua pincou yu richang shenghuo' (Things modern, cultural bricolage and everyday life in republican China) in Li Xiaoti, Zhongguo de chengshi shenghuo (City life in China), Taipei: Lianjing, 2005, pp. 477-96.
'Penology and reformation in modern China' in Børge Bakken (ed.), Crime, policing and criminology in China, Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005, pp. 29-63.
'Race in China' in Pal Nyiri and Joana Breidenbach (eds), China inside out: Contemporary Chinese nationalism and transnationalism, Budapest: Central European University Press, 2005, pp. 177-204.
'China' and 'Opium' in Jordan Goodman (ed.), Tobacco in history and culture: An Encyclopedia, Scribner's Turning Points in History Series, Michigan: Charles Scribner, 2004.
'Crime and punishment in post-liberation China' in Alan Lawrance (ed.), China since 1919: Revolution and reform. A sourcebook, London: Routledge, 2003; originally published in China Quarterly, no. 149 (March 1997), pp. 147-59.
'Global science, national politics and assimilationist discourse in modern China' in Bien Chiang and Ho Ts'ui-p'ing, State, market and ethnic groups contextualized, Taipei: Academia Sinica, 2003, pp. 251-78.
'Racial discourse in China' in John Stone and Rutledge Dennis (eds), Race and ethnicity, London: Blackwell, 2003, pp. 125-36; originally published as a chapter in Frank Dikötter (ed.), The construction of racial identities in China and Japan, London: Hurst, 1997.
'Sexualleben' in Brunhild Staiger, Stefan Friedrich and Hans-Wilm Schütte (eds), Das grosse China-Lexikon, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2003, pp. 665-8.
'Non-Western traditions: China' in Roy Porter (ed.), The Cambridge history of science, volume 4, The eighteenth century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 688-97.
'Race culture: Recent perspectives on the history of eugenics' in Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan (eds), An introduction to women's studies: Gender in a transnational world, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002, pp. 69-72; originally published in American Historical Review, 103, no. 2 (April 1998), pp. 467-78 (download this article by clicking here).
'Race in China' in David Theo Goldberg and John Solomos (eds), A companion to racial and ethnic studies, Oxford: Blackwell, 2002, pp. 495-510.
'Eugenics in Asia' in Neil J. Smelser and Paul B. Bates (eds), International encyclopedia of the social and behaviour sciences, London: Pergamon, 2002.
'Geti de shengzhi, zhengti de jianglai: Minguo de youshengxue' (Individual bodies and collective destinies: Eugenics in republican China) in Huang Kewu and Zhang Zhejia (eds), Si yu gong: Jindai Zhongguo geti yu zhengti zhi chongjian (Private space and public space: The restructuring of individual and collective bodies in modern China), Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo jikan, 2001, pp. 203-222.
'La sexualité et les maladies sexuellement transmissibles en Chine: Discours médical et représentations culturelles' in Marie-Eve Blanc, Laurence Husson et Evelyne Micollier (eds), Sociétés asiatiques face au Sida, Paris: L'Harmattan, 2000, pp. 23-39.
'Identidad' in Taciana Fisac and Steve Tsang (eds), China en Transición. Sociedad, cultura, política y economía, Barcelona: Edicions Bellaterra, 2000, pp. 165-88.
'Racial discourse in China' in John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith (eds), Ethnicity: A reader, London: Routledge, 1999, pp. 245-53, originally published as a chapter in Frank Dikötter (ed.), The construction of racial identities in China and Japan, London: Hurst, 1997.
'Wissenschaft, Sex und Moderne in China' in Franz X. Eder and Sabine Frühstück (eds), Neue Geschichten der Sexualität. Beispiele aus Ostasien und Zentraleuropa 1700-2000, Vienna: Turia und Kant, 1999, pp. 191-208.
'Group definition and the idea of "race" in modern China (1793-1949)' in Kevin Reilly, Stephen Kaufman, Angela Bodino (eds), Racism: A global reader, New York: Sharpe, 2003, pp. 207-210; and Martin Bulmer and Jon Solomos (eds), Racism, Oxford Readers Series, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 151-60; originally published in Ethnic and Racial Studies, 13, no. 3 (July 1990), pp. 421-32.
'Modern China' and 'Wang Fuzhi' in Kelly Boyd (ed.), Encyclopedia of historians and historical writing, London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1999, pp. 214-6, 1279.
'Hairy barbarians, furry primates and wild men: Medical science and cultural representations of hair in China' in Alf Hiltebeitel and Barbara D. Miller (eds), Hair: Its power and meaning in Asian cultures, New York: State University of New York Press, 1998, pp. 51-74.
'Médecine chinoise et tératologie (XVIe-XXe siècles)' in Michel Porret (ed.), Le corps violenté. Du geste à la parole, Geneva: Droz, 1998, pp. 241-54.
'Introduction' in Frank Dikötter (ed.), The construction of racial identities in China and Japan: Historical and contemporary perspectives, London: C. Hurst; Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press; Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press; Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1997, pp. 1-11.
'Racial discourse in China: Permutations and continuities' in Frank Dikötter (ed.), The construction of racial identities in China and Japan: Historical and contemporary perspectives, London: C. Hurst; Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press; Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press; Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1997, pp. 12-33.
'A history of sexually transmitted diseases in China' in Scott Bamber, Milton Lewis and Michael Waugh (eds), Sex, disease, and society: A comparative history of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS in Asia and the Pacific, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997, pp. 67-84.
'Group definition and the idea of "race" in modern China (1793-1949)' in John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith (eds), Ethnicity, Oxford Readers Series, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 245-54; originally published in Ethnic and Racial Studies, 13, no. 3 (July 1990), pp. 421-32.
'Racial identities in East Asia' in Barry Sautman (ed), Racial identities in East Asia, Hong Kong: Division of Social Science, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 1995, pp. 1-6.
SHORT CONTRIBUTIONS
'The People's Republic of China was Born in Chains', Foreign Policy, no. 234 (Autumn 2019).
'The Great Dictators', History Today, 69, no. 10 (Oct. 2019).
'The Chairman vanishes', Standpoint, May 2019, pp. 51-52.
'Lenin's Lessons for Mao', The Dorchester Review, 7, no. 2 (Winter 2017), pp. 47-50.
'The Cultural Revolution: A People's History', History Today, 66, no. 9 (August 2016), pp. 10-19.
'Introduction', Colin Thubron, Behind the Wall: A Journey through China, London: The Folio Society, 2016, pp. xiii-xvii.
'Eugenics in Asia' in James D. Wright (ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behaviour Sciences, second edition, London: Elsevier, 2014, vol. 8, pp. 233-6.
'The Disappeared', Foreign Policy, no. 198 (January 2013), pp. 90-5.
'Racial Theories in The China Critic', China Heritage Quarterly, no. 31 (Sept. 2012), online publication at www.chinaheritagequarterly.org.
'Mao's Great Leap into Famine', International Herald Tribune, 6 December 2010, p. 7.
'Chinese History: The Great Leap Backward', History Today, 20 October 2010, pp. 3-4 (republished in History Today, 20 July 2016, pp. 46-7, second most popular article of 2016).
'China' in Pamela Korsmeyer and Henry Kranzler (eds), Encyclopedia of Drugs, Alcohol and Addictive Behavior, New York: MacMillan, third edition, 2009, pp. 295-8.
'Rasismens många ansikten' (Racism in global perspective), Axess Magasin, no. 9 (December 2007).
'Kang Youwei' in Justin Wintle (ed.), New Makers of Modern Culture, London: Routledge, 2007, pp. 792-3.
'Eugenics in Asia' in Neil J. Smelser and Paul B. Bates (eds), International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behaviour Sciences, London: Elsevier, 2004, pp. 4901-5.
'China' and 'Opium' in Jordan Goodman (ed.), Tobacco in History and Culture: An Encyclopedia, Scribner's Turning Points in History Series, Michigan: Charles Scribner, 2004.
'Lun Zhongguo shi Fukehua, ping Feng Ke: Fanying' (Response to 'The Foucauldisation of Chinese history: A review of Frank Dikötter'), Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo jikan, no. 45 (Sept. 2004).
'Cultures of confinement: The history of the prison in global context', IIAS Newsletter, November 2003, p. 19.
'Bring out the beast: Body hair in China', openDemocracy, 4 December 2002 (download this item here).
'City of steps and legs', Review Article of Peter Hessler, River Town, and Ma Jian, Red Dust in Times Literary Supplement, 27 July 2001, p. 6 (you can read this one directly here).
'Nationalist myth-making: The construction of the Chinese race', China Rights Forum, no. 12 (July 2001), pp. 4-9.
'Teichman, Sir Eric' in Colin Matthew (ed.), New Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000 (in press).
'Eugenics in China: Legislation imposes decisions', The UNESCO Courier, September 1999, p. 31 (translated in 27 languages and Braille) (download this item here).
'Submerged in Shanghai', Review Article of Gail Hershatter, Dangerous Pleasures, Brian G. Martin, Shanghai Green Gang, Elizabeth J. Perry and Li Xun, Proletarian Power in Times Literary Supplement, 27 June 1997, p. 6 (you can read this one directly here).
'Throw-away babies: The growth of eugenic policies and practices in China', Leading Commentary, Times Literary Supplement, 12 January 1996, pp. 4-5 (translated into Danish and German) (you can read this one directly here).
'La médecine chinoise et ses monstres', Campus, no. 28 (June 1995), pp. 30-31.
'Racial nationalisms in East Asia', Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism Bulletin, no. 7 (July 1994), pp. 8-10.
'Response to Arif Dirlik', China Information, 7, no. 4 (Spring 1993), p. 71.
'The yolk and the ticks: Birth, sex and death in modern China', Republican China, 17, no. 1 (November 1991), pp. 139-44.
'China, June the Fourth: Western ideals', Oasis, 1, no. 1 (November 1989), pp. 5-6.
UNPUBLISHED CONTRIBUTIONS
'White ash and black coal: The perception of race in modern China, 1793-1949', PhD dissertation in History, University of London, 1990, 363 pp.
'Le bestiaire de Dostoïevski', MA dissertation in Russian Literature, University of Geneva, 1985, 105 pp.
'La représentation du Japon et des Japonais dans la caricature chinoise (1922-1937)', MA dissertation in History, University of Geneva, 1985, 70 pp.; recipient of the Gustave Ador History Award.
'Analyse thématique des dessins humoristiques, croquis et caricatures sur l'atome dans le Nebelspalter, 1945-1975', BA dissertation in History, University of Geneva, 1984, part of a collective research project published as Jean-Claude Favez and Ladislas Mysyrowicz, Le nucléaire en Suisse. Jalons pour une histoire difficile, Lausanne: l'Age d'Homme, 1987.