James Delbourgo was educated at the University of East Anglia, Cambridge, and Columbia, and is currently an associate professor of history at Rutgers University, where he co-directs the “Networks of Exchange” project at the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis. Originally a student of modern literature, he has written widely on early modern science, empire, and collecting, and is publishing a book on Hans Sloane and the origins of the British Museum with Penguin and Harvard. He lives in New York.