Jonathan D.

Spence
Jonathan Dermot Spence CMG (11 August 1936 – 25
December 2021) was a British-American historian, Jonathan D. Spence
CMG
sinologist, and author specialised in Chinese history.
He was Sterling Professor of History at Yale University Born 11 August 1936
from 1993 to 2008. His most widely read book is The Surrey, England
Search for Modern China, a survey of the last several Died 25 December 2021
hundred years of Chinese history based on his popular (aged 85)
course at Yale. A prolific author, reviewer, and essayist, West Haven, Connecticut,
he published over a dozen books on China. Spence's U.S.
major interest was modern China, especially the Qing Nationality British and American
dynasty, and relations between China and the West.[4]
Education Clare College, Cambridge
Spence frequently used biographies to examine
(MA)
cultural and political history. Another common theme
Yale University (PhD)
is the efforts of both Westerners and Chinese "to
Spouse Annping Chin
change China",[5] and how such efforts were
frustrated.[4] Scientific career
Fields Chinese history
Institutions Yale University
Early life and education Doctoral advisor Mary C. Wright

Spence was born on 11 August 1936 to Muriel (née Other academic Fang Chao-ying (房兆
Crailsham) and Dermot Spence in Surrey in England. advisors 楹)[1]
His mother was a French researcher while his father Doctoral students Sherman Cochran,[2]
worked at an art gallery and a publishing house.[6] Robert Oxnam[2] Pamela
Kyle Crossley, Kenneth
Spence was educated at Winchester College until 1954. Pomeranz, Joanna Waley-
He then spent two years in the British Army and was Cohen Mark C. Elliott[3]
deployed to Germany.[6] He read history at Clare
Jonathan Spence's voice
College, Cambridge and received his bachelor's degree
in 1959.[6] While at Cambridge he was the editor of the 0:00 / 0:00
campus magazine and was also the co-editor of British Recorded June 2008 from the BBC Radio 4
literary magazine Granta.[6] He went to Yale programme the Reith Lectures

University on a Clare-Mellon Fellowship to study the Chinese name

history and culture of China, receiving an MA and then Traditional Chinese 史景遷
a PhD in 1965, when he won the John Addison Porter
Simplified Chinese 史景迁
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyin Shǐ Jǐngqiān
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]

Academic career
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]

Spence was president of the American Historical Association between 2004 and 2005.[7] While his
primary focus was on Qing dynasty China, he also wrote a biography of Mao Zedong[9] and The Gate of
Heavenly Peace, a study of twentieth-century intellectuals and their relation to revolution.[10][11] He
retired from Yale in 2008.[12]

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]

Honors
Spence received eight honorary degrees in the United States as well as from the Chinese University of
Hong Kong, and (in 2003) from Oxford University. He was invited to become a visiting professor at
Peking University[13] and an honorary professor at Nanjing University.[7] He was named Companion of
the Order of St Michael and St George in 2001,[14] and in 2006, he was elected an Honorary Fellow of
Clare College, Cambridge.[15]

He received the William C. DeVane Medal of the Yale Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa (1952); a Guggenheim
Fellowship (1979); the Los Angeles Times History Prize (1982), and the Vursel Prize of the American
Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (1983). He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences (1985), named a MacArthur Fellow (1988), appointed to the Council of Scholars of the Library
of Congress (1988), elected a member of the American Philosophical Society (1993), and named a
corresponding fellow of the British Academy (1997).[7]

In May and June 2008, he gave the 60th anniversary Reith Lectures, which were broadcast on BBC Radio
4.[16][17]

In 2010, Spence was appointed to deliver the annual Jefferson Lecture at the Library of Congress, the US
federal government's highest honour for achievement in the humanities.[18]

Personal life
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]

Bibliography

Books
The Search for Modern China (1990; 2nd edition, 1999; 3rd edition 2013)[8][25]
Tsʻao Yin and the Kʻang-hsi Emperor: bondservant and master (https://archive.org/details/tso
yinknghsi00spen) (1966)[26]
To Change China: Western Advisers in China, 1620–1960 (Boston, Little Brown, 1969).[27]
Emperor of China: Self-Portrait of K'ang-Hsi (1974)[28]
The Death of Woman Wang (1978). Story situated in 17th century Tancheng.
ISBN 014005121X[29]
The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci (1984)[30]
The Question of Hu (New York: Knopf, 1987 ISBN 978-0-394-57190-4). Biography of John
Hu 胡若望, 18th-century Chinese who went to France with Jean-François Foucquet.[31]
Chinese Roundabout: Essays on History and Culture[32]
The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution 1895–1980 (1982)[33]
The Chan's Great Continent: China in Western Minds[34]
God's Chinese Son (New York: Norton, 1996 ISBN 978-0-393-03844-6). Biography of Hong
Xiuquan, leader of Taiping Rebellion.[35]
Mao Zedong (https://archive.org/details/maozedong00spen). Penguin Lives. New York:
Viking Press. 1999. ISBN 978-0-670-88669-2. OCLC 41641238 (https://search.worldcat.org/
oclc/41641238).
John F. Burns (6 February 2000). "Methods of the Great Leader" (https://www.nytimes.co
m/books/00/02/06/reviews/000206.06burnst.html). The New York Times.[36]
Treason by the Book (2001) ISBN 0-14-102779-7[37][38]
Return to Dragon Mountain: Memories of a Late Ming Man (2007) Viking, 332 pages.
ISBN 978-0-670-06357-4

Book reviews
"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]

References

Citations
1. Jonathan D. Spence, Ts'ao Yin and the K'ang-Hsi Emperor: Bondservant and Master(New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1966), p. xv. [1] (https://books.google.com/books?id=rXiSxh1
oGe0C&q=Fang+Chao-ying)
2. Kapp, Robert A. (1 July 2009). "History, Generations, and China Stories" (https://web.archiv
e.org/web/20220819195932/http://thechinabeat.org/). 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..."
3. Center_on_U.S._China_Relations (2022).
4. Roberts, 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.
5. Jonathan D. Spence To Change China; Western Advisers in China, 1620–1960. Boston:
Little Brown, 1969
6. Genzlinger, Neil (27 December 2021). "Jonathan Spence, Noted China Scholar, Dies at 85"
(https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/27/books/jonathan-spence-dead.html). The New York
Times. ISSN 0362-4331 (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0362-4331). Retrieved 1 January
2022.
7. Frederic E. Wakeman Jr., Jonathan D. Spence (http://www.historians.org/info/AHA_History/s
pencebio.cfm) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20060401201934/http://www.historian
s.org/info/AHA_History/spencebio.cfm) 1 April 2006 at the Wayback Machine at American
Historical Association website (retrieved 10 March 2010).
8. Schwarcz, Vera; Bruckner, D.J.R. (13 May 1990). "CHINA: THE HARD ROAD TO NOW" (htt
ps://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/06/specials/spence-search.html).
The New York Times. Retrieved 1 January 2022.
9. Spence, Jonathan D. (1999). Mao Zedong (https://books.google.com/books?id=z2FwAAAA
MAAJ). Viking. ISBN 978-0-670-88669-2.
10. Lattimore, David (18 October 1981). "The Long Revolution" (https://archive.nytimes.com/ww
w.nytimes.com/books/98/12/06/specials/spence-peace.html). The New York Times.
Retrieved 28 December 2021.
11. Pye, Lucian W. (June 1982). "The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and their
Revolution, 1895–1980. By Jonathan D. Spence. [New York: The Viking Press1981. 465 pp.
$19.95; London: Faber, 1982. £11·50.]" (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/china-quar
terly/article/abs/gate-of-heavenly-peace-the-chinese-and-their-revolution-18951980-by-jonat
han-d-spence-new-york-the-viking-press1981-465-pp-1995-london-faber-1982-1150/6FC50
901D74AE927DE4A3C0EF601B717). The China Quarterly. 90: 302–304.
doi:10.1017/S0305741000000382 (https://doi.org/10.1017%2FS0305741000000382).
ISSN 1468-2648 (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/1468-2648). S2CID 154391752 (https://ap
i.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:154391752). Retrieved 28 December 2021.
12. Italie, Hillel (27 December 2021). "Jonathan D. Spence, popular China scholar, dead at age
85" (https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-china-education-connecticut-yale-university-f2
2f53e450d9c5c98c624618f3999bb5). AP NEWS. Retrieved 28 December 2021.
13. "Remembering Jonathan D. Spence" (https://newsen.pku.edu.cn/news_events/news/peopl
e/12176.html). newsen.pku.edu.cn. Peking University. 29 December 2021. Retrieved
1 January 2022.
14. "Queen's Birthday Honors List Distinguishes Yale Professor Jonathan Spence" (https://new
s.yale.edu/2001/06/20/queens-birthday-honors-list-distinguishes-yale-professor-jonathan-sp
ence). YaleNews. Yale University. 20 June 2001. Retrieved 1 January 2022.
15. "Professor Jonathan Spence" (https://www.clare.cam.ac.uk/Professor-Jonathan-Spence/).
www.clare.cam.ac.uk. Clare College, Cambridge. Retrieved 28 December 2021.
16. Earnshaw, Graham (2008). "Reith Lecture: English Lessons" (http://www.thechinabeat.org/?
p=146). The China Beat.
17. Hayford, Charles W. (2008). "Jonathan Spence's Third Reith Lecture: Dreams, Paradoxes,
and the Uses of History" (http://thechinabeat.blogspot.com/2008/06/jonathan-spences-third-r
eith-lecture.html). The China Beat.
18. Jill Laster, "Eminent China Scholar Will Deliver 2010 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities" (h
ttp://chronicle.com/article/Eminent-China-Scholar-Will/64554/?sid=at), Chronicle of Higher
Education, 8 March 2010.
19. Spence, Johnathan D. (1998). 天安门：知识分子与中国革命. Beijing: 中央编译出版社. p. 1.
20. Hua, Sha (28 December 2021). "China Scholar Jonathan Spence Dies at Age 85" (https://w
ww.wsj.com/articles/china-scholar-jonathan-spence-dies-at-85-11640697976). Wall Street
Journal. Retrieved 28 December 2021.
21. 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" (http
s://www.chinatimes.com/cn/newspapers/20211228000393-260102?chdtv). 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」。"
22. Skinner, David (2010). Jonathan Spence Biography (http://www.neh.gov/about/awards/jeffer
son-lecture/jonathan-spence-biography), National Endowment for the Humanities. Retrieved
14 September 2014.
23. "Annping Chin, Senior Lecturer Emeritus" (https://history.yale.edu/people/annping-chin).
history.yale.edu. Department of History, Yale University. Retrieved 28 December 2021.
24. Genzlinger, Neil (27 December 2021). "Jonathan Spence, Noted China Scholar, Dies at 85"
(https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/27/books/jonathan-spence-dead.html). The New York
Times. ISSN 0362-4331 (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/0362-4331). Retrieved
28 December 2021.
25. Spence, Jonathan D. (2013). The Search for Modern China (https://www.wiley.com/en-au/Th
e+Search+for+Modern+China%2C+3rd+Edition-p-9780393934519) (Third ed.). New York:
Wiley. ISBN 978-0-393-93451-9.
26. Spence, Jonathan D. (1988). Tsʻao Yin and the Kʻang-hsi Emperor: Bondservant and Master
– Jonathan D. Spence – Google Boeken (https://books.google.com/books?id=rXiSxh1oGe0
C). Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-04277-1. Retrieved 15 February 2013.
27. Goodrich, L. Carrington (January 1970). "To Change China: Western advisers in China
1620–1960. By Spence Jonathan. [Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1969. 335 pp. $7.95.]" (http
s://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/china-quarterly/article/abs/to-change-china-western-ad
visers-in-china-16201960-by-spence-jonathan-boston-little-brown-co-1969-335-pp-795/D2A
74C07E69FCF573723759EEFB2DFB5). The China Quarterly. 41: 146–148.
doi:10.1017/S0305741000034834 (https://doi.org/10.1017%2FS0305741000034834).
ISSN 1468-2648 (https://search.worldcat.org/issn/1468-2648). S2CID 153767635 (https://ap
i.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:153767635). Retrieved 1 January 2022.
28. Spence, Jonathan D. (25 July 2012). Emperor of China: Self-Portrait of K'ang-Hsi –
Jonathan D. Spence – Google Boeken (https://books.google.com/books?id=hCyU7zwpOfI
C). Knopf Doubleday Publishing. ISBN 978-0-307-82306-9. Retrieved 15 February 2013.
29. Spence, Jonathan D. (1979). The Death of Woman Wang. New York: Penguin Books.
ISBN 014005121X.
30. Robinson, Paul (25 November 1984). "Ming Mnemonics" (https://archive.nytimes.com/www.
nytimes.com/books/98/12/06/specials/spence-ricci.html). Book Review Desk. The New York
Times. Retrieved 1 January 2022.
31. "The Faith Yes, Europe No : THE QUESTION OF HU by Jonathan D. Spence (Alfred A.
Knopf: $18.95;187 pp.; 0-394-57190-8)" (https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-11-
20-bk-420-story.html). Los Angeles Times. 20 November 1988.
32. Lee, Lily Xiao Hong (1994). "Chinese Roundabout: Essays in History and Culture (Review)"
(https://muse.jhu.edu/article/397578/summary). China Review International. 1 (2): 262–266.
doi:10.1353/cri.1994.0071 (https://doi.org/10.1353%2Fcri.1994.0071). S2CID 144067305 (ht
tps://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:144067305).
33. Pye, Lucian W. (1982). "The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and their Revolution,
1895–1980. By Jonathan D. Spence. [New York: The Viking Press1981. 465 pp. $19.95;
London: Faber, 1982. £11·50.]" (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/china-quarterly/arti
cle/abs/gate-of-heavenly-peace-the-chinese-and-their-revolution-18951980-by-jonathan-d-s
pence-new-york-the-viking-press1981-465-pp-1995-london-faber-1982-1150/6FC50901D74
AE927DE4A3C0EF601B717). The China Quarterly. 90: 302–304.
doi:10.1017/S0305741000000382 (https://doi.org/10.1017%2FS0305741000000382).
S2CID 154391752 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:154391752).
34. "Nonfiction Book Review: The Chan's Great Continent: China in Western Minds by Jonathan
D. Spence, Author W. W. Norton & Company $27.5 (279p) ISBN 978-0-393-02747-1" (http
s://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-393-02747-1). September 1998.
35. Wu, Qingyun (1997). "Reviewed work: God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom
of Hong Xiuquan, Jonathan D. Spence" (https://www.jstor.org/stable/20719667). Utopian
Studies. 8 (1): 234–236. JSTOR 20719667 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/20719667).
36. Pyemay/June 2000, Lucian W. (28 January 2009). "Mao: A Life; Mao Zedong" (https://www.f
oreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/2000-05-01/mao-life-mao-zedong). Foreign
Affairs.
37. Spence, Jonathan D. (2006). Treason by the Book. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-
102779-7.
38. Bernstein, Richard (9 March 2001). "BOOKS OF THE TIMES; Envy, Imperialism and
Intrigue in 18th-Century China" (https://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/09/books/books-of-the-ti
mes-envy-imperialism-and-intrigue-in-18th-century-china.html). The New York Times.
Retrieved 1 January 2022.
39. Spence, Jonathan D. (28 June 2007). "The Dream of Catholic China" (https://www.nybooks.
com/articles/2007/06/28/the-dream-of-catholic-china/). The New York Review of Books.
Retrieved 1 January 2022.

Sources
Center on U.S. China Relations (2 March 2022). "Remembering Jonathan Spence" (https://
www.chinafile.com/conversation/remembering-jonathan-spence). China File. Asia Society..
Lu, Hanchao (2004). "The Art of History: A Conversation with Jonathan Spence" (ftp://121.1
7.126.74/data1/ts01/english/novel/batch001/201005112059351417.pdf) (PDF). The Chinese
Historical Review. 11 (2): 133–154. doi:10.1080/1547402X.2004.11827201 (https://doi.org/1
0.1080%2F1547402X.2004.11827201). S2CID 151855607 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/
CorpusID:151855607).
Bruce Mazlish, "The Question of the Question of Hu", History and Theory 11 (1992): 141–
152
 Mirsky, Jonathan. Review of Chinese Roundabout The 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.
ISBN 978-1-884964-33-6): 1136–1137.

External links
Spence archive (http://www.nybooks.com/authors/1633) from The New York Review of
Books
Appearances (https://www.c-span.org/person/?53238) on C-SPAN

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