He is the holder of the Hwei-chih and Julia Hsiu Chair in Chinese Studies.
Esherick is a graduate of Harvard College (1964, summa cum laude).
He received his Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley (1971), under the supervision of Joseph R. Levenson and Frederic Wakeman.
[1] In addition to publishing research monographs, Esherick published a series of essays on historiography and reviews of the large questions in modern Chinese history.
As a member of the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars, for instance, Esherick in 1972 published a critique of the field and of his undergraduate professor, John K. Fairbank, "Harvard on Imperialism.