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Julia Lovell (born 1975) is a British scholar, author, and translator whose non-fiction books focus on China. Lovell is professor of Modern Chinese History and Literature at Birkbeck, University of London. Her works on the Opium Wars ( The Opium Wars: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China) and Maoism ( Maoism: A Global History) were widely reviewed. Her translations include works by Lu Xun, Han Shaogong, Eileen Chang and others.
Lovell is professor of Modern Chinese History and Literature at Birkbeck, University of London, where her research has been focused principally on the relationship between culture (specifically, literature, architecture, historiography and sport) and modern Chinese nation-building.
Lovell's books include The Politics of Cultural Capital: China's Quest for a Nobel Prize in Literature (University of Hawaii Press, 2006), The Great Wall: China Against the World 1000 BC – AD 2000 (Atlantic Books, 2006), The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China (Picador, 2011) and Maoism: A Global History (Random House, 2019).
Lovell is also a literary translator; her translations include works by Lu Xun, Han Shaogong, Eileen Chang and Zhu Wen. Zhu Wen's book I Love Dollars and Other Stories of China, which Lovell translated, was a finalist for the Kiriyama Prize in 2008. Her book The Opium War: Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China won the Jan Michalski Prize for Literature. It was the first non-fiction book to win the prize.
She was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize in 2010 in the category of Medieval, Early Modern, and Modern History. These prizes are given to young scholars who have made a significant contribution to their field.
Lovell has written articles about China for The Guardian, The Times, The Economist and The Times Literary Supplement.
She is married to author Robert Macfarlane.
Oxford University professor Rana Mitter wrote in The Guardian that Lovell's book "is part of a trend in understanding the British Empire and China's role in it," and that the "sense of an unfolding tragedy, explicable but inexorable, runs through the book, making it a gripping read as well as an important one." A reviewer in The Economist commented: "Julia Lovell's excellent new book explores why this period of history is so emotionally important for the Chinese" and "more importantly” explains “how China turned the Opium Wars into a founding myth of its struggle for modernity."
A broadly negative review in the socialist magazine Jacobin similarly argued that Lovell overstated Mao's influence, but concluded that the book could be used as a resource for leftists "to better understand our history — even the ugly parts." A review in the US Marine Corps' Journal of Advanced Military Studies praised the book for filling a gap in the literature, stating that "A thorough understanding of Maoism’s philosophical underpinnings and legacy has become increasingly salient to the American military professional." A lengthy review by Julian Gewirtz in Harper's concluded, "Lovell’s history underscores just how difficult it is to export a political idea wholesale, whether that idea is Maoism or the rule of law."
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