Jonathan D. Spence (simplified Chinese: 史景迁; traditional Chinese: 史景遷; pinyin: Shǐ Jǐngqiān, August 11, 1936– ) is a British-born historian and public intellectual specializing in Chinese history.

He has been Sterling Professor of History at Yale University since 1993. His most famous book is The Search for Modern China, which has become one of the standard texts on the last several hundred years of Chinese history. A prolific author, reviewer, and essayist, he has written a dozen books on China. His research takes him to many Chinese universities.

He is to give the 2008 Reith Lectures, which will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4; 2008 marks the 60th anniversary year of the Reith Lectures.

Spence's major interest is modern China, and especially its relations with the West. A notable recurring theme in Spence's work is the use of biographies to examine the wider cultural history of China. Another common theme to Spence's work is his interests in efforts on the part of both Westerners and Chinese to Westernize China, and why such efforts have failed.

Books

    * The Search for Modern China
    * Emperor of China: Self-Portrait of K'ang-Hsi (1974)
    * The Death of Woman Wang (1978)
    * To Change China: Western Advisers in China, 1620-1960 (1980)
    * The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci (1984)
    * The Question of Hu (1987)
    * Chinese Roundabout: Essays on History and Culture
    * The Gate of Heavenly Peace: The Chinese and Their Revolution 1895-1980
    * The Chan's Great Continent: China in Western Minds
    * God's Chinese Son (1996), about the Taiping Rebellion
    * Mao Zedong (1999)
    * Return to Dragon Mountain: Memories of a Late Ming Man (2007) Viking, 332 pages. ISBN 978-0-670-06357-4

Download Ideas of Power: China’s Empire in the Eighteenth Century and Today

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THE TANNER LECTURES ON HUMAN VALUES
Delivered at University of Utah
October 15, 1997

Jonathan Spence was president of the American Historical Association for the 2004-2005 term. Recognized as one of the foremost scholars of Chinese civilization from the 16th century to the present, Spence has written extensively on the role of history in shaping modern China. His critically acclaimed The Search for Modern China has become one of the standard texts on the last several hundred years of Chinese history. His recent works include a biography of Mao Zedong and Treason by the Book, exploring an intriguing episode of 18th-century history.

Ideas of Power: China’s Empire in the Eighteenth Century and Today:

My current interest in exploring the ideas of power that were prevalent in China during the eighteenth century - and in comparing those ideas with the ones prevalent today - stems from a curious action taken by the emperor Qianlong on November 29, 1735. On the surface, the incident looks harsh, but completely routine under the then prevailing modes of justice: the emperor called for the rearrest of a formerly convicted man living in Hunan province named Zeng Jing and ordered him brought to Beijing for trial. After a hurried examination, Zeng was found guilty and executed by the most savage penalty allowed by the law, death by dismemberment.

The unusual nature of the incident stems from the fact that Zeng had been pardoned by Emperor Qianlong's own father, Yongzheng, seven years before. Not only that, but Zeng had been pardoned by Emperor Yongzheng in 1728 with an elaborate display of publicity perhaps unprecedented in the annals of imperial benevolence. For although Zeng had been charged with treason, and found guilty by the chief officials in the realm, Emperor Yongzheng ordered that he be forgiven completely. Zeng was even given an official position, along with government funds to purchase a house and land in his native province. To publicize this act of extraordinary benevolence even further, Emperor Yongzheng ordered the compilation of a special book in four chapters, summarizing his generosity to Zeng Jing and the reasons for it. The book was printed at court expense in 1730 and distributed to every one of China's close to fifteen hundred county magistrates. The magistrates in turn were ordered to see to it that every candidate for the state examinations in the whole of China read the book and digested its message.

How then could one emperor so completely reverse the policies and actions of another? Or, to rephrase the question, how could a son in a culture that so valued filial piety completely reverse the instructions and actions of his own father? The legal questions seem almost secondary: was Zeng Jing guilty or not, and if so, guilty of what? The attempt to answer these simple-looking questions takes us into the heart of the imperial power structure.

In the late 1720s and the 1730s, when all this was happening, the unified Chinese imperial system had been in place for close to two thousand years. Patterns of belief and practice had solidified over time into a form that gave extraordinary power to the central government. To be sure, that government never lacked critics, but it had grown adept at isolating or marginalising them. It had also become expert at coopting moralistic arguments from the past in order to ensure that its own mission was taken for granted. The greatest danger facing the state was that internal dissension at the highest levels might threaten the fabric of the whole or that questions about the incumbents’ right to rule might receive wide acceptance.

The nightmare facing the two emperors was that both these things seemed to be happening at once, and the two men adopted different strategies to deal with the dangers. Yongzheng chose to woo the public by a display of personal generosity and an appearance of absolute honesty. Qianlong chose to protect his position by a reassertion of imperial dignity and by reimposing a veil of secrecy over the disclosures that his father had made. ...

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