Dr Hao Gao

I, Hao (Bill) Gao 高昊, am a historian of British imperialism in Asia, China in global history, particularly the encounters between the British and the Chinese empires in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I am generally interested in exploring the mutual understandings and misunderstandings between China and the West in the early processes of globalisation. I currently serve as Director of Global Engagement (DoGE) for the Department of Archaeology and History.

I am one of the few historians in the UK who are able to publish academically and engage the public in both English and Chinese. My monograph Creating the Opium War: British Imperial Attitudes towards China, 1792-1840 examines British perceptions of and attitudes towards China during their encounters from the Macartney embassy to the outbreak of the Opium War. It makes the first attempt to bring together the political history of Sino-western relations and cultural studies of British representations of China, as a new way of connecting 'top-down' international history with 'bottom-up' global history. The book adds a new dimension to explain the origins of the Opium War, which arguably reshaped Sino-western relations in the modern age.

In addition to my book, I have published peer-reviewed research articles in both English and Chinese journals, including History, Historical Research, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Britain and the World and Beijing Daxue Xuebao (Journal of Peking University).

Biography:

Born and raised in China, I have been trained as a historian in both British and Chinese academia. I studied in Peking University before I came to the UK. I completed my PhD in University of Edinburgh. I joined University of Exeter in 2015 and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2020. Beyond the university, I served as the University's Academic Director for the UK-China Humanities Alliance (UKCHA), with Exeter as the Lead University on the UK side (2020-25). In 2026, I was appointed to the Editorial Board of the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society out of a competitive process. See University website: Exeter historian appointed to editorial board of prestigious journal - University of Exeter News

In terms of research funding, in 2022 I won a British Council Enabling Grant on project '(Re-)connecting Research in China' (total value: £148,387) as one of the Project Leads.

Research supervision:

I am happy to supervise students who wish to study topics which broadly correlate with my research and teaching interests.