Edward A. Kracke Jr. (January 22, 1908 – July 8, 1976) was an American historian of China at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

, specializing in

Song dynasty The Song dynasty (; ; 960–1279) was an imperial dynasty of China that began in 960 and lasted until 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song following his usurpation of the throne of the Later Zhou. The Song conquered the rest ...

history. He was president of the

American Oriental Society The American Oriental Society was chartered under the laws of Massachusetts on September 7, 1842. It is one of the oldest learned societies in America, and is the oldest devoted to a particular field of scholarship. The Society encourages basic ...

in 1972–73. His father-in-law was the idealist philosopher William Ernest Hocking.

Education and career

Edward A. Kracke Jr. was born in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, N.Y. and raised largely in

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and Europe. He attended

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

where he received three academic degrees: B.A. in 1932, M.A. in 1935, and Ph.D. in 1941. His undergraduate degree was in architecture and the fine arts, but a course under Langdon Warner ignited his interest in China. With an M.A. under his belt, he studied Chinese and

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

n history under

Étienne Balazs Étienne Balazs (born István Balázs; 24 January 1905 – 29 November 1963) was a Hungarian-born French sinologist. Major works * ''Le traité économique du "Soueichou"'', (Leiden: Brill, 1953)Google Books * ''Le traité juridique du "Souei ...

at l'École nationale des langues orientales vivantes in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, France, in 1935–36. From 1936 to 1940 he studied Chinese language and history at

Yenching University Yenching University (), was a university in Beijing, China, that was formed out of the merger of four Christian colleges between the years 1915 and 1920. The term "Yenching" comes from an alternative name for old Beijing, derived from its status ...

in Beiping (

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

), China, where he associated with

William Hung William Hing Cheung Hung (; born January 13, 1983) is a Hong Kong motivational speaker and former singer who gained fame in 2004 as a result of his unsuccessful audition singing Ricky Martin's hit song "She Bangs" on the third season of the ...

. Subsequently, he returned to Harvard, working with

Edwin O. Reischauer Edwin Oldfather Reischauer (; October 15, 1910 – September 1, 1990) was an American diplomat, educator, and professor at Harvard University. Born in Tokyo to American educational missionaries, he became a leading scholar of the history and cul ...

John K. Fairbank John King Fairbank (May 24, 1907 – September 14, 1991) was an American historian of China and United States–China relations. He taught at Harvard University from 1936 until his retirement in 1977. He is credited with building the field of Ch ...

and

Serge Elisséeff Serge Elisséeff (; born Sergei Grigorievich Eliseyev; 13 January 188913 April 1975) was a Russian-French scholar, Japanologist, and professor at Harvard University. He was one of the first Westerners to study Japanese at a university in Japan. H ...

and completing a post-doctoral fellowship in Japanese language. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Kracke worked as an intelligence officer at the Far East Division, Research and Analysis Branch of the

Office of Strategic Services The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the intelligence agency of the United States during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines for all branc ...

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From January 1944 to October 1945 he headed the Japanese Political Section, producing reports on political conditions in Japan, Formosa (

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

), and Korea. In 1946 he transferred to the

U.S. Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an United States federal executive departments, executive department of the Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government responsible for the country's fore ...

's Division of Far East Intelligence, where he stayed for less than six months before resigning to devote himself to scholarly pursuits. In 1946, Kracke went as a visiting professor to the

, where he would remain until retiring in 1973. In 1953 he published a monograph titled ''Civil Service in Early Sung China'', a pioneering study of the Song (Sung) society and institutions based on his dissertation. From 1954 to 1957, he served as director of the Far Eastern Association (now Association for Asian Studies), from 1957 to 1963, Chairman of the Committee on Far Eastern Civilizations, from 1970 to 1971, Chairman of the Committee on Far Eastern Studies, and from 1972 to 1973, president of the

. He also served as the Director of the Center for Far Eastern Studies from 1961 to 1964 and again in 1971–1972.

References

University of Chicago faculty Harvard University alumni 20th-century American historians 1908 births 1976 deaths Writers from New York City American sinologists Historians of China American expatriates in France American expatriates in China {{US-historian-stub