Thomas S Mullaney

Professor of Chinese History, Stanford University

Thomas S Mullaney is professor of Chinese history at Stanford University. His books include Coming to Terms with the Nation: Ethnic Classification in Modern China (2010); Critical Han Studies: The History, Representation and Identity of China’s Majority (2012); and The Chinese Typewriter: A History (2017). His next book, The Chinese Computer: A Global History, is forthcoming from MIT Press.

Written by Thomas S Mullaney

Photo of people walking past a wall with a retro computer advertisement in Chinese featuring a computer and peripherals.

How a solitary prisoner decoded Chinese for the QWERTY keyboard

China’s personal computing revolution was born not in a suburban garage but a prison cell, and fine-tuned on a teacup

by Thomas S Mullaney