Immanuel Chung-Yueh Hsü (, 1923 – October 24, 2005) was a sinologist, a scholar of modern Chinese intellectual and diplomatic history, and a professor of

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

at the

University of California at Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...

Biography

Born in

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

in 1923, he studied 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 ...

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 ...

, and the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

. He held a Harvard-Yenching Fellowship at

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 high ...

from 1950 to 1954. After receiving his doctorate from Harvard, he spent the years 1955–1958 as a Research Fellow at Harvard's East Asian Research Center. He taught modern Chinese history at the University of California at Santa Barbara from 1959 until his retirement in 1991, serving as Chair of the History department from 1970 to 1972. He was a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the a ...

in 1962–1963, as well as a

Fulbright Fellow The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

. His most widely read book is ''

The Rise of Modern China ''The Rise of Modern China'' is an English book on China studies written by Immanuel C. Y. Hsu. It is an influential textbook in the United States. The book covers the evolution of the Chinese history over the past 400 years, from the establi ...

'', a survey of Chinese history from 1600 to the present, and a standard textbook. He died of complications from

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severi ...

on October 24, 2005.

Tribute

According to Jonathan Spence in the Preface to the Chinese translation of his book ''

The Search for Modern China ''The Search for Modern China'' is a 1990 non-fiction book by Jonathan Spence, published by Century Hutchinson and W. W. Norton & Company. It covers the period 1600 to 1989. According to Spence, the goal was to explain how Modern China was creat ...

'', the "two most prominent previous (to ''The Search for Modern China'') English-language surveys" (of modern Chinese history) were the one "by

John King 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 Chi ...

in the 1960s and the one by Immanuel Hsu in the 1970s." Spence acknowledged that he had learned much from these two scholars.Preface to the Chinese translation of Spence's ''The Search for Modern China'', dated March 31, 2001.
/ref>

Notes

Publications

, Oxford University Press (First edition, 1970; sixth edition, 2000). * Intellectual Trends in the Ch'ing Period *China's entry into the Family of Nations: The Diplomatic Phase, 1858–1880 *The Ili Crisis: A Study of Sino-Russian Diplomacy, 1871–1881 *China Without Mao: The Search for a New Order, Oxford University Press, 1983. *Chapter on ''Late Ch’ing foreign relations, 1866–1905'' in ''

The Cambridge History of China ''The Cambridge History of China'' is a series of books published by the Cambridge University Press (CUP) covering the history of China from the founding of the Qin dynasty in 221 BC to 1982 AD. The series was conceived by British historian Den ...

'', Volume 11: ''Late Ch'ing, 1800–1911'', edited by

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

Kwang-Ching Liu Liu Kwang-ching (劉廣京 b. Beijing 14 November 1921- d. 28 September 2006 Davis, California), who sometimes published under the name K.C. Liu, was a China-born American historian of China. He taught at University of California-Davis from 1963 ...

, Cambridge University Press
(Publisher's Catalogue)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hsu, Immanuel C.Y. Chinese sinologists Harvard University alumni University of Minnesota alumni University of California, Santa Barbara faculty Chinese emigrants to the United States 1923 births 2005 deaths Fulbright alumni