Paul Van Dyke is Professor Emeritus at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, and author of many books and articles on the history of Guangzhou, Macao and the Pearl River Delta, with a focus on the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He is currently working with the Centre for Macao Studies at the University of Macau in the “Intersecting Histories” project covering the years from 1820 to 1940, which promotes the study of the Pearl River Delta as a single unit.