Christopher Harding

Christopher Harding (born July 1978) is a cultural historian of modern India and Japan, lecturer in Asian history at the University of Edinburgh, broadcaster and journalist.^[1] His series on culture and mental health, The Borders of Sanity, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service in 2016.^[2]

Harding's book, The Japanese: A History in Twenty Lives, was included in The Times' best history books of the year 2020.^[3]

Selected publications

• Religious Transformation in South Asia: the Meanings of Conversion in Colonial Punjab. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008. (Oxford Historical Monographs)
• Religion and Psychotherapy in Modern Japan, Routledge, 2014. (Editor)
• Bukkyou Seishin Bunseki: Kosawa Heisaku-sensei wo kataru, [Nagao, Harding & Ikuta (co-authors)]. Kongo Shuppan, 2016.
• "Historical Reflections on Madness", in White, Read, Jain & Orr, The Palgrave Handbook of Global Mental Health: Socio-Cultural Perspectives, Palgrave, 2016.
• Japan Story: In Search of a Nation, 1850 to the Present, Penguin Books, 2018.
• The Japanese: A History in Twenty Lives, Penguin Books, 2022.
• The Light of Asia: A History of Western Fascination with the East, Penguin Books, 2025.