Colin Mackerras

Professor Colin Mackerras is a specialist on Chinese history, musical theatre and ethnic minorities, as well as Australia-China relations and Western images of China, and has published widely on all those subjects. He has written or edited over forty books and authored nearly 200 scholarly papers about China.

He worked at Griffith University from 1974 to 2004 and has been a professor Emeritus at the University since retirement. He taught first at the Beijing Foreign Studies University from 1964 to 1966 and has taught there many times since. He has also taught several times at the Renmin University of China in Beijing.

His books include The Rise of the Peking Opera, 1770–1870 (Clarendon Press, 1972); Chinese Drama, A Historical Survey (New World Press, 1990); China’s Minorities: Integration and modernization in the twentieth-century (Oxford University Press, 1994); Western Images of China, Revised Edition (Oxford University Press, 1999); China’s Ethnic Minorities and Globalisation (Routledge Curzon, 2003).

Colin Mackerras reviews ‘The West and China since 1500’ by John S. Gregory

November 2003, no. 256 • 01 November 2003

Jack Gregory has devoted much of his long career in China studies to teaching and studying the ways in which the West and China have interrelated. He is well qualified to write on the subject. Classes that Gregory has given in Melbourne to students attending University of the Third Age classes have inspired this book. In style and structure, it is highly suitable for teaching. The writing is clear ... (read more)

Colin Mackerras reviews 'Chinese Shadows' by Simon Leys

September 1978, no. 4 • 01 September 1978

‘The masses are the real heroes, while we ourselves are often childish and ignorant, and without this understanding it is impossible to acquire even the most rudimentary knowledge’(Mao Tse-tung, 1941) Except for the word ‘often’, which Simon Leys would wish to be replaced by ‘always’, this statement is one with which he would agree, because by ‘we ourselves’ Mao means the Chinese C ... (read more)