Cho-yun Hsu | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 許倬雲 | |||||||||||||||
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| Born | (1930-09-03)3 September 1930 (age 94) Xiamen, Republic of China | ||||||||||||||
| Education | National Taiwan University (BA,MA) University of Chicago (PhD) | ||||||||||||||
| Occupation | Historian | ||||||||||||||
| Awards | Tang Prize (2024) | ||||||||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 許倬雲 | ||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 许倬云 | ||||||||||||||
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Cho-yun Hsu (Chinese: 許倬雲; born September 3, 1930) is a Taiwanese-American[1] historian andsinologist.
Hsu was born inXiamen, China, in 1930 to a family whoseancestral home was inWuxi. Fleeing theChinese Civil War, Hsu moved with his parents to Taiwan during theRetreat of the Kuomintang to Taiwan in 1948.[2] He graduated fromNational Taiwan University with aBachelor of Arts (B.A.) and aMaster of Arts (M.A.) in history in 1953 and 1956, respectively.[3] In 1957, Hsu migrated to the United States to study for a doctorate at theUniversity of Chicago, where he resided at theChicago Theological Seminary and earned hisPh.D. in 1962.[4]
After receiving his doctorate, Hsu held academic positions inAcademia Sinica in Taiwan (1956–1971) then moved toUniversity of Pittsburgh in 1970. He was elected as a Member of theAcademica Sinica in 1980.[5][6][7] In 2024 he received theTang Prize in the field of Sinology.[8]
Hsu's scholarly works have been largely on Chinese history, emphasizing oncultural history,socio-economic history and ancient Chinese history. He was noted for his utilization of scientific methods and theories fromsocial sciences. His major works includeWestern Chou Civilization (1990 Yale University Press),Ancient China in Transition (1965 Stanford University Press), andHan Agriculture (1980 University of Washington Press). His work in ChineseWangu jianghe (2009 Echo), translated into English asChina: A New Cultural History (2012 Columbia University Press), narrates the full course of development of Chinese culture in the perspective of globalization.
Hsu is also known for his advocacy and advisory work during the democratic transition in Taiwan. After earning his doctorate, Hsu returned to start his academic career, fulfilling a promise to his mother, his alma materNational Taiwan University, and theAcademia Sinica. While working in Taiwan, Hsu andHerbert Ma [zh] recruited many humanities and social science scholars to train Taiwanese academics.[2] He is an Emeritus Professor of History and Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh where he taught from 1970 until his retirement in 1998, and has served in honorary positions in several universities includingDuke University,Nanjing University, andChinese University of Hong Kong. Hsu is a contributing columnist for Chinese newspapers includingChina Times,United Daily News in Taiwan and Southern City News System in China．
Hsu is one of the founding members of theChiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, and has served as chair of its North American Committee since 1989. During the 1990s, he was instrumental in providing funding to a number of universities and colleges to establish teaching positions on Chinese studies. He oversaw a gradual shift in the Foundation's grants from established scholars to young scholars. Hsu recommended CCK Foundation grants to libraries to catalog rare Chinese books and to digitize historic maps ofEast Asia.
Hsu authored or coauthored numerous publications:
Born in 1930 in Xiamen City, China, Hsu and his family moved to Taiwan in 1948, one year before the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949.
