China News Service, Washington, December 27 (Reporter Sha Hanting) Jonathan D. Spence, a famous American historian, sinologist, and honorary professor of Yale University, passed away in Connecticut on the 25th local time at the age of 85.
Joanne B. Freeman, a professor of history at Yale University in the United States, announced the news on social media on the evening of the 26th and called Shi Jingqian an "outstanding and pioneering historian."
According to the Associated Press, Shi Jingqian died on the 25th at his home in West Haven, Connecticut.
His wife, Yale University professor Annping Chin (Annping Chin) said that Shi Jingqian died of complications of Parkinson's syndrome.
Shi Jingqian is one of the most famous Chinese historians in contemporary America, and is known as the "most storytelling" sinologist.
Shi Jingqian, along with Philip A. Kuhn and Frederic Wakeman, are known as the "Three Masters" of American Sinology after John Fairbank.
Shi Jingqian was born in the United Kingdom in 1936, received a bachelor's degree from Cambridge University in the United Kingdom in 1959, and a doctorate degree from Yale University in the United States in 1965. From 1966 to 2008, he was a professor in the History Department of Yale University. Director of the Center, President of the American Historical Society, etc.
Since 1974, Shi Jingqian has authored 14 historical works on China, including "Pursuing Modern China", "Wang's Death: The Destiny of Little People Behind the Great History", "Kangxi and Cao Yin", and "The Palace of Memory of Matteo Ricci" Wait.
Among them, "Pursuing Modern China" tells the history of China from the 17th century to the 1980s. It is a must-read list for universities in Western countries to study Chinese history, and it is also among the best-sellers of the "New York Times".
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