Richard von Glahn (PhD, Yale University) is Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. A specialist in Chinese economic history, Richard is the author of The Country of Streams and Grottoes: Expansion, Settlement, and the Civilizing of the Sichuan Frontier in Song Times; Fountain of Fortune: Money and Monetary Policy in China, 1000–1700; and The Sinister Way: The Divine and the Demonic in Chinese Religious Culture. He is also coeditor of The Song-Yuan-Ming Transition in Chinese History and Global Connections and Monetary History, 1470–1800. His current research focuses on monetary history on a global scale, from ancient times to the recent past.