Alessandro Stanziani is a professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and Senior Researcher at the Centre National des Recherches Scientifiques (CNRS) in Paris. He earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Naples and a Ph.D. in history from the EHESS, Paris. He has received numerous grants for his research, including one from the CNRS for a project on bonded labour in the Indian Ocean and one from the British Academy and French Ministry of Research Program on food policies in France and Britain in the eighteenth to twentieth centuries (with Peter Atkins). Stanziani has written approximately 80 articles and book chapters in English, French, German and Russian. He is the author of L'economie en revolution. Le cas russe, 1870 1930 and Histoire de la qualite alimentaire, 18e 20e siecles. He is the editor of La travail contraint en Asie et en Europe, XVIIe XXe siecles and La qualite des produits en France XVIIIe XXe siecles and co-editor of Nomenclatures et classifications. Enjeux economiques et dynamiques historiques (with Martin Bruegel and Jerome Bourdieu).