Bulletin Spring‧Summer 1996

A Citation Prof. Jonatha n Dermot Spenc e P h . D . , L H D , L i t t . D . T h e r e is an affinity between history and law, for both depend on scrupulous research into matters of fact and evidence. Good lawyers, though, uncover not only the letter but the spirit of the law. Similarly, good historian s must present the evidence in a narrative that strikes us as significant and true, faithful to the life and spirit of the people and their times. Prof. Spence is such an historian. There is also an affinity between history and epic, because they both deal with leaders, even heroes, who have lived and died as agents and victims of the great events of their times. The early epic poets were also historians of war and warriors, of great lovers , of nationhood, of religion, o f legend, and of myth. I n the eighteenth century, some English writers, the novelist Fielding and the historian Gibbon are the great examples, began to publish epics in prose rather than verse. While every good epic, whether in verse or prose, is some kind of history, not every good history can be an epic. Jonathan Spence's The Search for Modern China is a history book that is also an epic in prose. It is history that sifts the past to find cultural as well as political change, history that sets the past t o uncover the present, history raised through the brilliance of its writing to the condi- tion of literature. Born in Surrey, England in 1936, Jonathan Spence read history at Clare College, Cambridge from 1956 to 1959, before going to Yale for his MA and Ph.D. degrees. In 1965 he was appointed as an assistant professor of history at Yale, achieving the full professor rank a mere six years later. I n 1976 he was given the George Burton Adams Chair of History at Yale and in 1993 was made Sterling Professor of History there. His academic awards are many: in 1978 he won the William C. DeVane Medal, he has been both a Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellow, he was awarded the Los Angeles Times History Prize in 1982 and the Vursel Prize of the American Academy and Institute of Art s and Letters the following year. In 1987 he was visiting professor at Peking University. From American institutions, he holds three honorary degrees. His teaching has not made him neglect 6