Susan Whitfield

Who is Susan Whitfield?

Susan Whitfield is an English historian and librarian who works at the British Library in London, England. She obtained a PhD in historiography from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, and now specialises in the social and intellectual history of the Tang Dynasty, and the history of the Silk Road. She is currently director of the International Dunhuang Project, and in this capacity is involved in research and cataloguing of Central Asian manuscripts at the British Library. She has a particular interest in identifying forged manuscripts from Dunhuang. In an interview at the University of Minnesota in 2013, she talks about how she came to her interest in China and Central Asia and ways in which her interest in Central Asia has made her rethink Chinese history, regarding it as rather more fragmented and diverse than unitary narratives might have us believe.