China A New History

CHINA A NEW HISTORY BOOK: John King Fairbank devoted his life to writing and teaching on China, a

country whose history and society absorbed him throughout his adult

years. This book is a fitting conclusion to his career.

Fairbank, who was affectionately referred to as JKF by his colleagues

and students, began as a scholar of British history. But he was drawn to

the study of China by the publication of its diplomatic archives in 1932,

when he was in China doing research for his dissertation. That dissertation

emerged as the pioneering monograph Trade and Diplomacy on the

China Coast, which launched the study of Qing dynasty documents and

China’s interaction with the West. In 1936 Fairbank joined the Harvard

University History Department, where he introduced the history of modern

China to its curriculum. His lectures, given with wry wit and humorous

slides, presented history as a story. For the next five decades he continued

to teach at Harvard, to work for the United States government in

Washington, D.C., and in China during World War II, and to write, coauthor,

and edit over three dozen books plus hundreds of articles, reviews,

commentaries, and congressional testimonies. Fairbank was the

dean of modern Chinese studies not only in the United States but in most

of the world—a teacher, mentor, administrator, public educator, and historian.

I first met JKF in 1953 when I entered Harvard’s East Asian Regional

Studies master’s program. He subsequently became my Ph.D. thesis advisor

and invited me to become a Research Associate of Harvard’s East

Asian Research Center (later renamed the Fairbank Center for East Asian

Research), where I have been ever

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