Jean-Francois Briere is an associate professor at State University of New York at Albany. He has been actively involved in publishing and research. Michele Vialet is a professor of Romance Languages and Literature at the University of Cincinnati. Her research areas include North African Women Writers (Assia Djebar), 17th-Century French Literature, and Literary Representation of Islamic Issues and Societies. ... Read more Pamela Kyle Crossley received her Ph.D. in Modern Chinese History from Yale University. She is currently the Robert and Barbara Black Professor of History at Dartmouth College. Her books include THE WOBBLING PIVOT: AN INTERPRETIVE HISTORY OF CHINA SINCE 1800; WHAT IS GLOBAL HISTORY?; 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. 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 and economic history of medieval Iran (THE PATRICIANS OF NISHAPUR and COTTON, CLIMATE, AND CAMELS IN EARLY ISLAMIC IRAN), the history of human-animal relations (THE CAMEL AND THE WHEEL and HUNTERS, HERDERS, AND HAMBURGERS), 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 and THE CASE FOR ISLAMO-CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION). He is the editor of the COLUMBIA HISTORY OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. He has published four novels, coedited THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE MODERN MIDDLE EAST, and hosted an educational television series on the Middle East. He was awarded a fellowship by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and was named a Carnegie Corporation Scholar. Daniel R. Headrick received his Ph.D. in History from Princeton University. Professor of History and Social Science, Emeritus, at Roosevelt University in Chicago, he is 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; TECHNOLOGY: A WORLD HISTORY; POWER OVER PEOPLES: TECHNOLOGY, ENVIRONMENTS AND WESTERN IMPERIALISM, 1400 TO THE PRESENT; and WHEN INFORMATION CAME OF AGE: TECHNOLOGIES OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE AGE OF REASON AND REVOLUTION, 1700-1850. His articles have appeared in the JOURNAL OF WORLD HISTORY and the JOURNAL OF MODERN HISTORY, and he has been awarded fellowships by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Steven W. Hirsch holds a Ph.D. in Classics from Stanford University and is currently Associate Professor of Classics and History at Tufts University. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Massachusetts Foundation for Humanities and Public Policy. His research and publications include THE FRIENDSHIP OF THE BARBARIANS: XENOPHON AND THE PERSIAN EMPIRE, as well as articles and reviews in the CLASSICAL JOURNAL, the AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHILOLOGY, and the JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY HISTORY. He is currently working on a comparative study of ancient Mediterranean and Chinese civilizations. Show Less