Dikötter writes accessible history and has won the prestigious BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for his book Mao's Great Famine. The author shows how and why notions of 'race' became so widespread in China, now updated to include the continuation of this trend into the twenty-first century. He examines how Western notions of scientific racism have played out in China.

Frank Dikötter is Chair Professor of Humanities at the University of Hong Kong. Before moving to Asia in 2006, he was Professor of the Modern History of China at SOAS. He has published nine books about the history of China, including Mao's Great Famine, which won the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction in 2011.