Xinru Liu (born 1951) is a professor Emeritus of early Indian history and world history at The College of New Jersey, and has held since 1993 a full professorship at the Institute of World History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
[1] Liu had little formal schooling but instead worked as a peasant and then as a factory worker during the Cultural Revolution.
She taught herself English and history and gained admittance to the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned a PhD in 1985 for work on Ancient Indian and Chinese History.
Her book, "Ancient India and Ancient China: Trade and Religious Exchanges, A.D. 1-600" won the award for Outstanding Research Works done between 1977 and 1991 from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
[4] Her most recent work is Dionysus and drama in the Buddhist art of Gandhara written jointly with Pia Brancaccio and published in the Journal of Global History.