Stephen A. Smith is a historian of modern Russia and China, a Senior Research Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford and a Professor of History in Oxford University. Recent publications include Russia in Revolution: An Empire in Crisis, 1890–1928 (2017). His current research focuses on 'supernatural politics', comparing the ways in which peasants in Soviet Russia (1917–41) and in China (1949–76) used the resources of popular religion and magic to make sense of the turbulent changes that overwhelmed their lives in the course of the Communist revolutions.