Michael Loewe | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Loewe in 2005 | |||||||||||
| Born | Michael Arthur Nathan Loewe (1922-11-02)2 November 1922 Oxford, England | ||||||||||
| Died | 1 January 2025(2025-01-01) (aged 102) | ||||||||||
| Education | SOAS University of London (BA, PhD) | ||||||||||
| Spouse | |||||||||||
| Relatives | Louis Loewe (great-grandfather) Herbert Loewe (father) Albert Montefiore Hyamson (uncle) | ||||||||||
| Scientific career | |||||||||||
| Fields | Chinese history | ||||||||||
| Institutions | Cambridge University | ||||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 魯惟一 | ||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 鲁惟一 | ||||||||||
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Michael Arthur Nathan Loewe (2 November 1922 – 1 January 2025) was a British historian,Sinologist, and writer who authored dozens of books, articles, and other publications in the fields ofClassical Chinese as well as the history ofancient and early Imperial China. He was a professor of Chinese and a fellow at theUniversity of Cambridge for nearly 60 years.
Loewe was born on 2 November 1922 inOxford, England, to a distinguishedAnglo-Jewish family.[1] His great-grandfatherLouis Loewe (1809–1888) was aPrussian Silesian professor ofOriental studies and theology who served as the personal secretary of the British Jewish businessman, financier, and philanthropistMoses Montefiore. Loewe's father,Herbert Loewe, was a professor ofSemitic languages who taught at bothCambridge University andOxford University. Loewe's mother, Ethel Victoria Hyamson, was the sister of the British official and historianAlbert Hyamson. His elder brother Raphael Loewe (1919–2011) was a professor ofHebrew andJewish studies atUniversity College London. Loewe was married toCarmen Blacker, a scholar of theJapanese language.
Loewe attended secondary school atThe Perse School inCambridge, then enteredMagdalen College, Oxford. Following the outbreak of war with Japan in December 1941, Loewe was assigned to learn Japanese at the secret Bedford Japanese School run by CaptainOswald Tuck RN. He was on the first course, which began in February 1942 and lasted for five months. Towards the end of the course some training in cryptography was given. After completing the course Loewe was posted toBletchley Park, where he worked in the Naval Section until the end of the war.[2] He studiedMandarin Chinese in his spare time.[3]
During a six-month stay in Beijing in 1947, Loewe became interested in traditional and historical Chinese topics, which he began studying at theSchool of African and Oriental Studies, University of London after returning to Britain.[3] He received afirst class honours degree in Chinese in 1951, and in 1956 he left the government to serve as a Lecturer in the History of the Far East at theUniversity of London. From 1960, he stayed inthe Kyoto University Research Centre for the Cultural Sciences for his research. His mentor in Kyoto was Shikazo Mori. On his way from the UK toKyoto, he purchased theDocuments of the Han dynasty on wooden slips from Edsin Gol atTaipei, and started research about it. Shikazo Mori and he organized a reading circle of thewooden slips from Edsin Gol, and his study became his bookRecords of Han Administration later.[4][5]SOAS awarded him a Ph.D. in 1963, and he subsequently joined the faculty at Cambridge, where he taught until retiring in 1990 to focus solely on research and scholarship. He was a fellow ofClare Hall, Cambridge.
Loeweturned 100 on 2 November 2022,[6] and died on 1 January 2025, aged 102.[7]
A unique award in Loewe's honour exists at Cambridge: the "Michael Loewe Prize" may be awarded annually to one or more undergraduate candidates who have achieved distinction in literary Chinese.[9]
