Jonathan D. Spence (Japanese name: simplified Chinese: 史景迁; traditional Chinese: 史景遷; pinyin: Shǐ Jǐngqiān, August 11, 1936– ) is a British-born historian and public intellectual specializing in Chinese history. He has been Sterling Professor of History at Yale University since 1993. His most famous book is The Search for Modern China, which has become one of the standard texts on the last several hundred years of Chinese history. A prolific author, reviewer, and essayist, he has written a dozen books on China. His research takes him to many Chinese universities.

He is to give the 2008 Reith Lectures, which will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4; 2008 marks the 60th anniversary year of the Reith Lectures.

Spence's major interest is modern China, and especially its relations with the West. A notable recurring theme in Spence's work is the use of biographies to examine the wider cultural history of China. Another common theme to Spence's work is his interests in efforts on the part of both Westerners and Chinese to Westernize China, and why such efforts have failed.

Books

• The Search for Modern China
• Emperor of China: Self-Portrait of K'ang-Hsi (1974)
• The Death of Woman Wang (1978)
• To Change China: Western Advisers in China, 1620-1960 (1980)
• The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci (1984)
• The Question of Hu (1987)
• Chinese Roundabout: Essays on History and Culture
• The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution 1895-1980
• The Chan's Great Continent: China in Western Minds
• God's Chinese Son (1996), about the Taiping Rebellion
• Mao Zedong (1999)
• Return to Dragon Mountain: Memories of a Late Ming Man (2007) Viking,

• Jonathan Spence was the president of the American Historical Association for the 2004-2005 term. Recognized as one of the foremost scholars of Chinese civilization from the 16th century to the present, Spence has written extensively on the role of history in shaping modern China. His recent works include a biography of Mao Zedong andTreason by the Book, exploring an intriguing episode of 18th-century history. Spence teaches one of the most popular undergraduate classes at Yale on the history of Modern China 1600-2007. The class is offered every other year during the spring semester and is a perennial favorite among history majors and non-history majors alike. Spence was educated at Winchester College, a famous independent school for boys in Winchester, England, and at Clare College at the University of Cambridge and holds a bachelor's degree from there and master's and doctoral degrees from Yale University in the United States.

  [edit]Honors

  Spence has received eight honorary degrees from various colleges in the United States as well as the Chinese University of Hong Kong. In 2003 Professor Spence received an honorary degree from Oxford University. He was also invited to become a visiting professor at Peking University and an honorary professor at Nanjing University. Four years ago he was named CMG (Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George) on the Queen of England's Birthday Honours List, and in 2006 he was named a Fellow at Clare College, Cambridge.

  In 1978 he received the William C. DeVane Medal of the Yale Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa; in 1979, a Guggenheim Fellowship; in 1982, the Los Angeles Times History Prize; and in 1983, the Vursel Prize of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Professor Spence was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1985 and was named a MacArthur Fellow in 1988, the same year he was appointed to the Council of Scholars at the Library of Congress. In 1993 he was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society and in 1997 was named a corresponding fellow of the British Academy.

  [edit]Family

  He lives in West Haven with his wife, Annping Chin (a Senior Lecturer in History at Yale who got her PhD in Classical Chinese Philosophy at Columbia). He has two sons from a previous marriage, Colin and Ian Spence, and two stepchildren, Yar Woo and Mei Chin.