Tonio Andrade

Tonio Andrade grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, and has degrees from Reed College (anthropology) and Yale University (history). He is currently based at Emory University, where he writes on global history and the history of China. His first book, How Taiwan Became Chinese (Columbia UP, 2008; Chinese translation, The Yuanliu Press, 2007), focuses on the early history of Taiwan. His second book, Lost Colony: The Untold Story of Europe’s First War with China (Princeton UP, 2011), explores the European military revolution with data from East Asia. His articles have appeared in The Journal of World History, Late Imperial China, International Journal of Maritime History, The Canadian Journal of Sociology, Itinerario, The Journal of Asian Studies, and various other publications.

As a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, he will undertake research into the fascinating military history of Yuan and Ming China, during which time guns and gunpowder weapons revolutionized warfare. He will also seek to understand how those weapons spread from China throughout the world, sparking dramatic changes in warfare and society wherever they took root, perhaps most significantly in Europe, whose constantly warring states adopted and adapted them with alacrity. This global military revolution has important implications for how we understand world history and the famous and much-debated question of the rise of the west. Perhaps our modern world began in China. Perhaps it will end there, too, but that’s a different story.

He lives in Decatur, Georgia, with his wife, Andrea, and his three daughters, Amalia, Sylvia, and Josephine.

Tonio Andrade at his home in Decatur, Georgia. Photo by Andrea Artuso Andrade, 2011.