Pioneer of Mao studies, author of The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung and editor of the ten-volume Mao’s Road to Power
A Minnesotan trained in physics who worked on the Manhattan Project before turning to political science, he taught in Paris and directed the Contemporary China Institute at SOAS in London. His 1963 The Political Thought of Mao Tse-tung was the first systematic Western analysis of Mao’s thought grounded in the original texts, arguing that it was not a copy of Soviet Marxism but a distinct adaptation to Chinese conditions. In his later years at Harvard’s Fairbank Center he edited Mao’s Road to Power, the unexpurgated collection of Mao’s writings from 1912 to 1949.
Career Timeline
- 1968–1989Director of the Contemporary China Institute and professor of politics, SOAS