John Whitney Hall (September 13, 1916 – October 21, 1997)[1] was an American historian of Japan who specialized in pre-modernJapanese history. His life work was recognized by the Japanese government, which awarded him theOrder of the Sacred Treasure.[2]
The only son ofCongregationalmissionaries, Hall was born inKyoto in 1916 and lived in Japan until he was a teenager.[2] Hall moved to the United States to attendPhillips Andover Academy inAndover, Massachusetts, before matriculating atAmherst College, where he majored in American studies. After receiving an A.B. degree in 1939, he returned to Japan as an instructor in English atDoshisha University in Kyoto until 1941.[2]
During the war, he served with theOffice of Naval Intelligence, leaving the service with the rank of Lieutenant Commander.[3]: 397
Hall earned hisPh.D. in East Asian languages and literature fromHarvard University in 1950. At Harvard, he became one of the first graduate students to study underEdwin O. Reischauer, who was another missionary's son and a pioneering Japan scholar.[2]
Hall'sobituary in theNew York Times described him as "something of an academic entrepreneur" because he was so central in the work of building up the fledgling field of Japanese studies in the years after World War II. In his lifetime, he served as a stalwart bridge linking historians in Japan with historians in the West.Harry Harootunian, a professor of history atNew York University and a former student of Hall's, summarizes this view succinctly: "What I think guys like Hall tried to do was de-exoticize the study of Japan. To de-exoticize, anything is to bring it closer to us, to eliminate the distance that we imagine exists between ourselves and the object of our study."[2]
Hall himself explained: "My own fascination with Japanese history lies primarily with the manner in which Japan's political and social institutions have changed and diversified over time and how this fundamentally 'Eastern' culture gave rise to modern world power."[4]
In 1948, Professor Hall began teaching at theUniversity of Michigan, one of the few American universities that had a significant program in his field. He would become director of the Center for Japanese Studies (1957–1960) and a founder of the first American research venture in post-war Japan. Through that program, a field research station inOkayama, Professor Hall spent a year in Japan in 1952 and became the first person to begin examining the voluminous records of one of the daimyo families that had ruled Japan during the early modern period between 1600 and 1868. He became an expert in that period, identifying the seeds of Japan's subsequent industrialization and modernization—findings which challenged the traditional Western view that that period had been nothing more than Japan's rather backward, final feudal age.[2]
His earliest book wasTanuma Okitsugu, 1718–1787.[5] Among other interests, his research focused on theKamakura period in thehistory of Japan.[6]
George Wilson Pierson recruited Whitney to join theYale University faculty as part of a plan to expand the department's curriculum to include a greater emphasis on Asian history.[7] In 1961, he was named as theA. Whitney Griswold Professor of History, a position he held until his retirement in 1983. Five years after arriving at Yale, Hall published his most famous book,Government and Local Power in Japan, 500 to 1700, which traced the development of Okayama during that period and, some say, opened up the first thousand years of Japanese history to the English-speaking world. Although scholarly books rarely have a shelf life of more than a generation, some colleagues assert that Hall's book is in a category all its own.[2]
While at Yale, Hall served as chairman of the history department from 1973 until 1976. He was also the chairman of the East Asian Languages and Literatures Department from 1971 through 1974. In 1983, he retired from the faculty. The university's John W. Hall Lecture Series in Japanese Studies was established in his memory.[1]
During the 1960s and 1970s, Professor Hall became a leader in many of the organizations that were working to build up the field of Japanese studies. These groups were attempting to represent the interests of the field in order to get support from universities, foundations and the Japanese government. Professor Hall's activities included
Throughout these years, Professor Hall also worked closely with the Japan Foundation, which was set up by the Japanese government in the 1970s to help American universities establish Japanese studies programs. The Japan Foundation eventually gave $1 million to 10 major universities for activities in the field.[2] Hall was honored with the Japan Foundation Award in 1976.[8]
In a statistical overview derived from writings by and about John Whitney Hall,OCLC/WorldCat encompasses roughly 90+ works in 200+ publications in 8 languages and 10,000+ library holdings[9][10]
In 1987, Hall was one of the recipients ofAmerican Historical Association's Award for Scholarly Distinction.[11]
The Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Northeast Asia Council (NEAC) presents the John Whitney Hall Book Prize, which has been awarded annually since 1994 for an outstanding English language book published on Japan[12] or Korea.[a]
