Vermeer's Hat (36 page)

A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR

Timothy Brook holds the Shaw Chair in Chinese at Oxford University and is principal of St. John’s College at the University
of British Columbia. He is the author or editor of over a dozen books, including the prize-winning
The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China
,
which has been translated into several languages. He is also the editor in chief of a six-volume series on the history of
China published by Harvard University Press. He was awarded the François-Xavier Garneau Medal by the Canadian Historical Association
in 2005 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006.