Laura J. Mitchell is associate professor at UC Irvine, where she teaches African and world history. She strives to make sense of early-modern societies in a digital age, and to make history accessible to diverse audiences. Her research on colonial Southern Africa has been supported by grants from Fulbright, the ACLS, the NEH, the UC Office of the President, and the Mellon Foundation. She has collaborated with a wide range of scholars and history educators, serving as president of the Forum on European Expansion and Global Interaction, as a member of the World History Association Executive Council, and as a co-chair of the AP World History Curriculum Assessment and Development Committee. Her book, Belongings: Property, Family and Identity in Colonial South Africa (Columbia University Press, 2009) won the American Historical Association’s Gutenberg-e Prize. She is the co-author, with Ross Dunn, of Panorama: A World History.