About the Author
Richard W. Bulliet (PhD, Harvard University) is Professor of Middle Eastern History at Columbia University. He has written scholarly works on a number of topics: the social history of medieval Iran (The Patricians of Nishapur), the historical competition between pack camels and wheeled transport (The Camel and the Wheel), the process of conversion to Islam (Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period), and the overall course of Islamic social history (Islam: The View from the Edge). Dr. Bulliet is the editor of the Columbia History of the Twentieth Century. He has published four novels, co-edited The Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East, and hosted an educational television series on the Middle East. He is also the recipient of a fellowship by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.Pamela Kyle Crossley (PhD, Yale University) is Professor of History and Rosenwald Research Professor in the Arts and Sciences at Dartmouth College. Her books include A Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology; The Manchus; Orphan Warriors: Three Manchu Generations and the End of the Qing World; and (with Lynn Hollen Lees and John W. Servos) Global Society: The World Since 1900. Her research--which focuses on the cultural history of China, Inner Asia, and Central Asia--has been supported by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.Daniel R. Headrick (PhD, Princeton University) is Professor of History and Social Science at Roosevelt University in Chicago and the author of several books on the history of technology, imperialism, and international relations, including The Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century; The Tentacles of Progress: Technology Transfer in the Age of Imperialism; The Invisible Weapon: Telecommunications and International Politics; and When Information Came of