Empires of Ideas: Creating the Modern University from Germany to America to China

Join us for a lecture by William C. Kirby, T. M. Chang Professor of China Studies at Harvard University and Spangler Family Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. The subject of the talk will by Kirby’s recent book, released this year in paperback with a new preface, Creating the Modern University from Germany to America to China.

A historian of modern China, Kirby’s work examines contemporary China’s business, economic, and political development in an international context. He writes and teaches on the growth of modern companies in China (Chinese and foreign; state-owned and private); Chinese corporate law and company structure; business relations across Greater China (PRC, Taiwan, Hong Kong); and China’s relations with the United States and Europe. He has authored or co-authored more than fifty HBS cases on business in China, ranging from start-ups to SOEs; agribusiness and middle-class consumption; banking and microfinance; healthcare and education; corporate governance and corporate social responsibility; and the global strategies of Chinese firms.

A reception and book-signing will follow the talk. The first 25 BU affiliates (students, faculty, staff) to register for this event will receive a complimentary copy of Empires of Ideas. You must attend the event to receive your book.

Register by: 11/17/2025
When 5:00 pm - 6:15 pm on 17 November 2025
Building Pardee School of Global Studies, 121 Bay State Road
Phone 617-358-1349
Contact Email pardee@bu.edu
Contact Organization Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer Range Future
Fees free
Open To public
Speakers William C. Kirby