Photo by Mark Czjakowski and Princeton University

Janet Chen

Janet Chen is a professor of history and East Asian studies at Princeton University, where she has taught courses on modern China and East Asia since 2006. Her books include Guilty of Indigence: The Urban Poor in China, 1900–1953, a study of the destitute homeless during a time of war and revolution, and The Sounds of Mandarin: Learning to Speak a National Language in China and Taiwan, 1913–1960, a social history of how people learned to speak Mandarin.

Janet Chen

Janet Chen is a professor of history and East Asian studies at Princeton University, where she has taught courses on modern China and East Asia since 2006. Her books include Guilty of Indigence: The Urban Poor in China, 1900–1953, a study of the destitute homeless during a time of war and revolution, and The Sounds of Mandarin: Learning to Speak a National Language in China and Taiwan, 1913–1960, a social history of how people learned to speak Mandarin.

Books by Janet Chen

  • The Search for Modern China: A Documentary Collection

    Janet Chen, Pei-kai Cheng, Michael Lestz, Jonathan D. Spence

    Third Edition, Paperback, 2013

    The most widely used primary-source reader for the modern China course, thoroughly revised and updated to reflect the new edition of Spence, The Search for Modern China.
  • The Search for Modern China

    Jonathan D. Spence, Janet Chen

    Fourth Edition, Paperback, 2025

    The gold standard for the modern Chinese history course, for a new generation