Philip Kuhn
| Philip Alden Kuhn | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 9, 1933 London, England |
| Died | February 11, 2016 (aged 82) |
| Citizenship | American |
| Fields |
Qing dynasty history Overseas Chinese history |
| Institutions |
University of Chicago Harvard University |
| Alma mater |
Harvard University Georgetown University |
| Doctoral advisor | John King Fairbank, Benjamin I. Schwartz |
| Doctoral students | Timothy Brook, Timothy Cheek, Prasenjit Duara, William C. Kirby, Hans van de Ven, Arthur Waldron |
Philip A. Kuhn (simplified Chinese: 孔飞力 or 孔复礼; traditional Chinese: 孔飛力 or 孔復禮; pinyin: Kǒng Fēilì; September 9, 1933 – February 11, 2016) was an American historian of China and the Francis Lee Higginson Professor of History and of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University.
Frederic Wakeman in a review of Kuhn's Soulstealers in The New York Review of Books described Kuhn as "one of the West's premier China historians." Stanford University historian Harold L. Kahn added that “Every twenty years, like clockwork, Philip Kuhn produces a book that we are required to read. What he says sticks to the ribs and gives much pleasure.”
Kuhn was born on September 9, 1933 in London. He was the elder son of Ferdinand and Delia Kuhn, to whom he dedicated his first book. His father had been bureau chief of the London Office of the New York Times and later served at the Washington Post. His mother was a writer who served as information director of the Office of Community War Services during World War II.
Kuhn attended Woodrow Wilson High School and then received his A.B. from Harvard College. Later he received his M.A. from Georgetown University, and Ph.D. in History and East Asian Languages at Harvard University, where his dissertation advisor was John K. Fairbank. He enlisted in the United States Army, serving from 1955 to 1958. He married Sally Cheng (程吾) in the 1960s and had one son, Anthony Kuhn, a journalist. That marriage dissolved in 1980. He also had a daughter, Deborah W. Kuhn, with his second wife Mary L. Smith.
Kuhn taught at the University of Chicago from 1963 to 1978 where he attained the rank of Associate Professor in the Department of History. While at Chicago, Kuhn published in 1970 Rebellion and its Enemies in Late Imperial China: Militarization and Social Structure, 1796-1864 as part of the Harvard East Asian monograph series, which led to his being granted tenure and a full professorship.
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