Hans van de Ven

Johan 'Hans' van de Ven (born 10 January 1958 in Velsen) is an authority on the history of 19th and 20th century China. He holds several positions at the University of Cambridge, where he is Professor of Modern Chinese History, Chairman of the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Management Committee member of the East Asia Institute, and Director in Oriental Studies at St Catharine's College. He studied sinology at Leiden University, and modern Chinese history at Harvard, where he received a PhD. He is also the History Link-Up Governor at Melbourn Village College in Cambridgeshire.

Dr. van de Ven is a guest professor at the History Department of Nanjing University and was an International Fellow at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, China, in 2005–06. As of 2008, he is working on a book about the Chinese Maritime Customs Service.

He was awarded the Philip Lilienthal Prize of the University of California Press for best first book in Asian Studies for his book on the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in 1991 and the Society for Military History 2012 Book Prize for non-US work for the book The Battle for China, which he edited along with Mark Peattie and Edward Drea.

Van de Ven is married to the former Susan Kerr. They have three sons - Johan, Derek and Willem. His wife's father was the late Malcolm H. Kerr, political scientist and President of the American University of Beirut, who was assassinated in January 1984. She wrote a book about her family's quest for truth and justice. Van de Ven is the brother-in-law of Steve Kerr, coach of the Golden State Warriors, former Arizona Wildcats and Chicago Bulls player.