Series Editors:

Richard Toye is Professor of Modern History at the University of Exeter, UK. He specializes in the study of Britain's role within a global and imperial context from the late nineteenth century to the present day. Richard focuses on the rhetorical aspects of politics, economics, and empire and has authored or co-authored multiple monographs. His interest in rhetoric's societal impact is evident in Arguing about Empire: Imperial Rhetoric in Britain and France, 1882-1956 (2017), which was co-authored with Martin Thomas. Richard is also an authority on the career of Winston Churchill. His book Winston Churchill: A Life in the News (2020), examines Churchill's journalism, media image, and the reception of news about him. This builds upon his earlier work, The Roar of the Lion: The Untold Story of Churchill’s World War II Speeches (2013), which revealed that Churchill's oratory sparked more controversy and criticism than commonly believed.

Vivienne Xiangwei Guo is a historian of modern China in the history department, King’s College London, UK. Her research focuses on the intellectual, political, and cultural history of modern China, particularly the history of China’s intellectual elites in the late nineteenth century and the twentieth century. Her first monograph, Women and Politics in Wartime China (2018), examines the political networks of Chinese elite women during the Second World War and their roles in promoting ‘national resistance and reconstruction’ from the 1930s to the 1950s. Her second monograph, Negotiating A Chinese Federation (2022), studies how Chinese warlords and intellectuals engaged one another in the making of a Chinese federation between 1919 and 1923. She is now working on a BA/Leverhulme-funded project that explores the history of foreign language learning among Chinese intellectuals. Her new project aims to shed light on the relationship between foreign language, idea, and identity within a non-European and non-colonial context.