Jonathan Dermot SpenceCMG (11 August 1936 – 25 December 2021) was a British-American historian, sinologist, and author who specialised in Chinese history. He was Sterling Professor of History at Yale University from 1993 to 2008. His most widely read book is The Search for Modern China, a survey of the last several hundred years of Chinese history based on his popular course at Yale. A prolific author, reviewer, and essayist, he published more than a dozen books on China. Spence's major interest was modern China, especially the Qing dynasty, and relations between China and the West.[4] Spence frequently used biographies to examine cultural and political history. Another common theme is the efforts of both Westerners and Chinese "to change China",[5] and how such efforts were frustrated.[4]
Spence was born on 11 August 1936 to Muriel (née Crailsham) and Dermot Spence in Surrey in England. His mother was a French researcher while his father worked at an art gallery and a publishing house.[6]
Spence was educated at Winchester College until 1954. He then spent two years in the British Army and was deployed to Germany.[6] He read history at Clare College, Cambridge and received his bachelor's degree in 1959.[6] While at Cambridge he was the editor of the campus magazine and was also the co-editor of British literary magazine Granta.[6] He went to Yale University on a Clare-Mellon Fellowship to study the history and culture of China, receiving an MA and then a PhD in 1965, when he won the John Addison Porter Prize. As part of his graduate training, he spent a year in Australia to study under Fang Chao-ying and Tu Lien-che, scholars of the Qing dynasty.[7]
Spence taught a popular undergraduate course at Yale University on the history of modern China, which formed the basis for his book The Search for Modern China (1990).[8] He taught at Yale for more than 40 years. During this time he wrote many books on China that furthered the understanding of the country and its culture with Western audiences. Some of his books during this period included The Search for Modern China (1990), which was published on the back of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, and God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan (1996).[6]
His book The Search for Modern China was a New York Times best seller and documented the evolution of China starting from the decline of the Ming dynasty in the early 1600s to the pro-democracy movement of 1989, while his book Treason by the Book (2001) documented the story of a scholar who took on the third Manchu Emperor in the 1700s.[6]
Spence's name in Chinese, 史景遷 (pinyin: Shǐ Jǐngqiān), was given to him by Fang Chao-ying to reflect his love of history and admiration for the Han dynasty historian Sima Qian. He chose the surname 史 (Shǐ; literally "history") and personal name 景遷 (Jǐngqiān), where 景 (jǐng) means admire (as in 景仰) and 遷 (qiān) was taken from the personal name of Sima Qian (司馬遷).[19][20][21] Spence became a U.S. citizen in 2000.[22]
Spence's wife Annping Chin was a senior lecturer in history at Yale with a PhD in Chinese thought from Columbia.[12][23] He had two sons from a previous marriage (1962–1993) to Helen Alexander, Colin and Ian Spence, two stepchildren, Yar Woo and Mei Chin, a grandchild as well as two step-grandchildren.[24][20] Spence died from complications of Parkinson's disease on 25 December 2021, at the age of 85 at his residence in West Haven, Connecticut.[12][24][20]
"The Dream of Catholic China" The New York Review of Books 54/11 (28 June 2007) : 22–24 [reviews Liam Matthew Brockey, Journey to the East: the Jesuit Mission to China, 1579–1724][39]
^Jonathan D. Spence, Ts'ao Yin and the K'ang-Hsi Emperor: Bondservant and Master(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), p. xv. [1]
^ abKapp, Robert A. (1 July 2009). "History, Generations, and China Stories". The China Beat Blog Archive 2008-2012. DigitalCommons @ University of Nebraska – Lincoln. Archived from the original on 19 August 2022. Retrieved 1 January 2022. Happily, several of Spence's Ph.D. students decided to throw their efforts into a conference and celebration in his honor, on the Yale Campus, in early May.... Four attendees in particular – Robert Oxnam, Roger DesForges, Sherman Cochran, and I – represented the original tranche of doctoral candidates who finished their degrees under Jonathan's benign and helpful guidance...{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
^ abRoberts, Priscilla "Spence, Jonathan D." pages 1136–1137 from The Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing edited by Kelly Boyd, Volume 2, London:Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1999 page 1136.
^Jonathan D. Spence To Change China; Western Advisers in China, 1620–1960. Boston: Little Brown, 1969
^藍孝威; 李欣恬 (28 December 2021). "美着名汉学家史景迁逝世 享寿85岁 - 两岸要闻". 中时新闻网 China Times (in Chinese). Retrieved 1 January 2022. 史景遷的博士論文指導教授、中國史專家房兆楹為他取的中文名字「史景遷」，寓意「學史者當景仰司馬遷」。
Bruce Mazlish, "The Question of the Question of Hu", History and Theory 11 (1992): 141–152
Mirsky, Jonathan. Review of Chinese RoundaboutThe New York Review of Books, Volume 39, Issue No. 17 (5 November 1992): 51–55.
Nathan, Andrew J. "A Culture of Cruelty: Review of The Search for Modern China" pages 30–34 from The New Republic, Volume 203 (30 July 1990): 50–54.
Roberts, Priscilla. "Spence, Jonathan D.", The Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing edited by Kelly Boyd, Volume 2, (London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1999. ISBN978-1-884964-33-6): 1136–1137.
