John K. Fairbank - Development of China Studies

Development of China Studies

Fairbank taught at Harvard until he retired in 1977. He published a number of both academic and non-academic works on China, many of which would reach a wide audience outside academia. He also published an expanded revision of his doctoral dissertation as Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast in 1953.

Harvard developed as the premier American center for East Asian studies. This growth was significantly affected by Fairbank's actions, including establishing the Center for East Asian Research which was renamed in his honor after his retirement. He was director of the Center from 1955 through 1973.

Fairbank raised money to support fellowships for many graduate students, trained numerous influential China historians at Harvard and placed them widely in universities and colleges in the US and overseas. He welcomed and funded researchers from all over the world to spend time in Cambridge and hosted a series of conferences which brought scholars together and yielded publications, many of which Fairbank edited. He established the influential Harvard East Asian Series which provided a venue for his students to publish their dissertations which was essential for achieving tenure. He was known as a relentless but supportive editor. Fairbank and his colleagues at Harvard, Edwin O. Reischauer and Albert Craig wrote the dominant textbook on China and Japan, A History of East Asian Civilization and Fairbank established strong links to influential figures in Washington D.C. both by training journalists, government officials, and others and by working with the government on China policy.

In 1966, Fairbank and the Sinologist Denis C. Twitchett, then at Cambridge University set in motion the plans for The Cambridge History of China. Originally intended to cover the entire history of China in six volumes, the project grew until it reached its present expected size of 15 volumes. Twitchett and Fairbank divided the history between them, with Fairbank editing the volumes on modern (post 1800) China, while Twitchett took responsibility for the period from the Qin to early Qing. Fairbank edited and wrote parts of volumes 10 through 15, the last of which appeared in the year after his death.