About Author

Michael S. Laver is an assistant professor of history at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). Prior to this appointment, he was an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. He earned his PhD and MA at the University of Pennsylvania and his BA at Purdue University. Dr. Laver specializes in East Asian languages and civilizations and has published another book on Japanese history, Japan's Economy by Proxy in the Seventeenth Century.