Maria Adele Carrai is Assistant Professor of Global China Studies at New York University Shanghai and the author of Sovereignty in China: A Genealogy of a Concept since 1840. Jennifer Rudolph is Professor of Asian History and International and Global Studies at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and the author of Negotiated Power in Late Imperial China: The Zongli Yamen and the Politics of Reform. Michael Szonyi is Frank Wen-hsiung Wu Memorial Professor of Chinese History at Harvard University and the author of The Art of Being Governed: Everyday Politics in Late Imperial China and Cold War Island: Quemoy on the Front Line.