Karl Gerth

I write, teach, and speak on the history and contemporary implications of Chinese consumerism and capitalism. At the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), I am a Professor of History and the Hsiu Endowed Chair in Chinese Studies. My latest book, Unending Capitalism: State Consumerism and the Negation China’s Communist Revolution, investigates the impact of consumerism following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. I am also the author of As China Goes, So Goes the World: How Chinese Consumers Are Transforming Everything, which explores whether Chinese consumers can rescue the economy without creating even deeper global problems and China Made: Consumer Culture and the Creation of the Nation, a history of economic nationalism in early twentieth-century China. After receiving a PhD in from Harvard in 2000, I taught at the University of South Carolina, Oxford University, and moved to UCSD in 2013. My non-academic life focuses on outdoor activities, especially rowing in a single scull and hiking. See my personal webpage for more: www.karlgerth.com