Professor of American History, Olive H. Palmer Professor in Humanities, Stanford University
Gordon H. Chang is professor of history at Stanford University and the Olive H. Palmer Professor in Humanities. He recently stepped down as the Senior Associate Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education. In that position, he helped lead the University through the trials of the pandemic. He has been on the Stanford faculty since 1991.
In 2019, he published Ghosts of Gold Mountain: The Epic History of the Chinese Who Built the Transcontinental (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) and, as co-editor, The Chinese and the Iron Road: Building the Transcontinental (Stanford University Press). These books draw from more than seven years of work conducted by the Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project at Stanford which he has co-directed. His other books include Friends and Enemies: The United States, China, and the Soviet Union, 1948-1972; Morning Glory, Evening Shadow: Yamato Ichihashi and his Internment Writings, 1942-1945; and Fateful Ties: A History of America’s Preoccupation with China. He edited or co-edited Asian Americans and Politics; Chinese American Voices, with Judy Yung and Him Mark Lai; and Asian American Art: A History.
He is a fourth generation Californian, having grown up in Oakland. His degrees are from Princeton University and Stanford. He has been a fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation, American Council of Learned Societies, and three times at the Stanford Humanities Center. He has served as the Director of the Asian American Studies Program and the Director of the Center for East Asian Studies. In addition to the honors and awards mentioned above, he is a Fellow of the Society of American History; received the Distinguished Alumni Award, Princeton Asian American Alumni Association; and was honored with Certificates of Recognition for this scholarship from Congresspeople Nancy Pelosi, Anna Eshoo, and Ro Khanna, U.S. House of Representatives; and from the California State Legislature, including Representatives Kansen Chu, David Chiu, Evan Low, Jerry Hill, and Jim Beall. He will be in residence at the Huntington Library next year.
