Adjunct Assistant Professor

Biography
B.A., History, University of California, Berkeley, 2007
M.A., History, Columbia University, 2010
Ph.D., History, University of California, Berkeley, 2017
James Lin is a historian of Taiwan and its interactions with the world in the 20th century. His book, In the Global Vanguard: Agrarian Development and the Making of Modern Taiwan (University of California Press 2025), examines rural reform and agricultural science in China and Taiwan from the early 20th century through the postwar era, then its subsequent re-imagining during Taiwanese development missions to Africa, Asia, and Latin America from the 1950s onward. His primary appointment is Associate Professor in the Jackson School of International Studies.
Awards
Fulbright-IIE Grant (Taiwan)
Association for Asian Studies Grant
Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Dissertation Fellowship
Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation Dissertation Fellowship
Ministry of Foreign Affairs Taiwan Fellowship
Agricultural History Society Best Dissertation Award
National Science and Technology Council, Taiwan
Research
Selected Research
- Lin, James. In the Global Vanguard: Agrarian Development and the Making of Modern Taiwan. University of California Press, 2025.
- “Nostalgia for Japanese Colonialism: Historical Memory and Postcolonialism in Contemporary Taiwan.” History Compass 20, no. 11 (2022): e12751. https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.12751
- “Martyrs of Development: Taiwanese Agrarian Development and the Republic of Vietnam, 1959–1975.” Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review (e-journal) 33: 53–83. https://cross-currents.berkeley.edu/e-journal/issue-33/lin. Download PDF
- “Sowing Seeds and Knowledge: Agricultural Development in the US, Taiwan, and the World, 1949-1975,” East Asian Science, Technology and Society (EASTS) 9 (June 2015): 127-149. https://doi.org/10.1215/18752160-2872116.
Courses Taught
Autumn 2025
Winter 2025
Spring 2024
Autumn 2023
Spring 2023
Winter 2023
Winter 2022
Additional Courses
Modern Taiwanese History and Contemporary Taiwanese Society (HSTAS 490)
Making Modern Taiwan (HSTAS 590)
Graduate Study Areas
Affiliations
Home Department