Harvard sinologist whose Origins of the Cultural Revolution trilogy and Mao’s Last Revolution dissected China’s elite politics
A journalist in London through 1961 who covered Chinese developments from afar, he first reached mainland China only in 1972; he went on to study elite Chinese politics from the founding of the People's Republic through the Cultural Revolution.
A Briton born in India, he was a journalist and a Labour MP before becoming a scholar, and founded and edited The China Quarterly. The three volumes of The Origins of the Cultural Revolution (1974–1997) traced the line struggles inside the top leadership from the Hundred Flowers of 1956 to 1966, showing the Cultural Revolution as the outcome of political conflicts accumulated since the failure of the Great Leap rather than a personal whim of Mao. Mao’s Last Revolution (2006, with Michael Schoenhals) is the standard narrative of 1966–1976. He was a professor at Harvard and director of its Fairbank Center.
Career Timeline
- 1974–1979Labour MP for Belper
- 1984–2019Professor of government, Harvard University
Related historical events
- 1956–1957From the Hundred Flowers to the Anti-Rightist CampaignAuthor of The Origins of the Cultural Revolution, vol. 1Analysed the leadership conflicts of 1956–1957 as the starting point of the Cultural Revolution.
- 1966–1976The Cultural RevolutionAuthor of Mao’s Last RevolutionWrote the standard narrative of 1966–1976.