Zachary Clark

I am a historian of Late Qing and twentieth century China, particularly focusing on Sino-Tibetan borderland history. My research explores the social, religious, infrastructural, and environmental developments across western China, especially in the regions of Tibet, Qinghai, Sichuan, and Yunnan, as it transitioned from empire to nation-state. My monograph, tentatively titled “The State in Shards: Western Warlords and Negotiated Sovereignties in Republican China” examines state-building in western China by warlord municipal governments from the late-nineteenth century to the 1950s and demonstrates how Republican-era efforts in China’s west at development and governance reform contributed to building “New China” after 1949. My research broadly seeks to explore the diverse methods and transregional/transnational communities that shaped and evolved alongside the convergent forces of nationalism, ethnicity, and identity in China across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Late Qing & Modern China, Sino-Tibetan History, Borderlands, Warlords, Ethnicity and Identity, Environment and Infrastructure