Roderick MacFarquhar: Difference between revisions

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{{Short description|British sinologist and politician (1930–2019)}}

{{more citations needed|date=February 2019}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2021}}

{{Infobox officeholder

| image = Roderick MacFarquhar (cropped).jpg

| constituency_MP = [[Belper (UK Parliament constituency)|Belper]]

| term_start = 28 February 1974

| term_end = 7 April 1979

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| death_date = {{Death date and age|2019|2|10|1930|12|2|df=y}}

| death_place = [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]], U.S.

| spouse = {{plainlist|
* {{marriage|Emily Cohen|1964|2001|end = died}}<br>
* {{marriage|Dalena Wright|2012}}

}}

| children = 2, including [[Larissa MacFarquhar|Larissa]]

| party = [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] (before 1981)<br>
| otherparty = [[Social Democratic Party (UK)|SDP]] (1980s)

| alma_mater = = {{ubl|[[Keble College, Oxford]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]])<br>|[[Harvard University]] ([[Master of Arts|MA]])|[[London School of Economics]] ([[Doctor of Philosophy|PhD]])}}

| module = <!-- Embeds philosophy infobox here -->

{{infobox philosopher

| embed = yes

| institutions = {{ubl|[[Harvard University]]<br> |[[School of Oriental and African Studies]] <br> |[[Columbia University]]<br> |[[Oxford University]]}}

| main_interests = Modern Chinese history}}

| school_tradition =

| influences =

| influenced =

| notable_ideas =

| main_interests = Modern Chinese history}}

}}

}}

'''Roderick Lemonde MacFarquhar''' (2 December 1930 – 10 February 2019) was a British politician, journalist, and academic [[Orientalism|orientalist]], specializing in [[China]] as a [[Harvard University]] professor. He also served as a [[Member of Parliament]] in the 1970s. He was best known for his studies of Maoist China, the three-volume ''[[The Origins of the Cultural Revolution]]'' and ''[[Mao's Last Revolution]]''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/2185878/roderick-macfarquhar-scholar-who-wrote-leading-history-chinas|title=Roderick MacFarquhar: leading historian of the Cultural Revolution|last=Zheng|first=William|date=12 February 2019|website=South China Morning Post|access-date=12 February 2019}}</ref>

'''Roderick Lemonde MacFarquhar''' (2 December 1930 – 10 February 2019) was a British sinologist, politician, and journalist.

'''RoderickMacFarquhar Lemondewas founding editor of MacFarquhar''[[China Quarterly]]'' (2in December1959. 1930He –served 10as Februarya 2019[[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member wasof aParliament]] Britishin politician,the journalist1970s, andthen academicjoined the [[Orientalism|orientalistBBC]],. specializingIn inthe [[China]]1980s, ashe became a professor at [[Harvard University]], professor. Hewhere alsohe served several terms as adirector of the [[MemberFairbank ofCenter Parliament]]for inChinese the 1970sStudies]]. He was best known for his studies of Maoist China, the three-volume ''[[The Origins of the Cultural Revolution]]'' and ''[[Mao's Last Revolution]]''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/2185878/roderick-macfarquhar-scholar-who-wrote-leading-history-chinas|title=Roderick MacFarquhar: leading historian of the Cultural Revolution|last=Zheng|first=William|date=12 February 2019|website=South China Morning Post|access-date=12 February 2019}}</ref>

==Family and early life==

MacFarquhar was born in [[Lahore]], [[British Raj|British India]] (now [[Pakistan]]). His father was Sir Alexander MacFarquhar, a member of the Indian Civil Service and later a senior diplomat at the [[United Nations]]. His mother was Berenice (née Whitburn). He was educated at the [[Aitchison College]] in Lahore and [[Fettes College]], an independent school in [[Edinburgh]].<ref>{{cite web |last1=Brown |first1=Kerry |title=Roderick MacFarquhar obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/20/roderick-macfarquhar-obituary |website=The Guardian |date=20 February 2019 |accessdate=23 January 2020}}</ref>

==Academic and journalistic career==

After spending part of his [[national service]] from 1949 to 1950 in [[Egypt]] and [[Jordan]] as a second lieutenant in the [[Royal Tank Regiment]], he went up to [[Keble College, Oxford|Keble College]], [[University of Oxford|Oxford]] to read [[Philosophy, Politics and Economics]], obtaining a BA in 1953. He then went on to obtain a master's degree from [[Harvard University]] in Far Eastern Regional Studies in 1955, studying with [[John King Fairbank]], who supported his career as a China scholar.{{citation needed|date=February 2019}}

He worked as a journalist on the staff of the ''[[Daily Telegraph]]'' and ''[[Sunday Telegraph]]'' from 1955 to 1961 specialising in China, and also reported for [[BBC]] television ''[[Panorama (TV series)|Panorama]]'' from 1963 to 1965. He was the founding editor of ''[[The China Quarterly]]'' from 1959 to 1968, and a non-resident fellow of [[St Antony's College, Oxford]], from 1965 to 1968. In 1969 he was a senior research fellow at [[Columbia University]] in [[New York City]], and in 1971 he returned to England to hold a similar fellowship at the [[Chatham House|Royal Institute of International Affairs]]. MacFarquhar completed his doctorate at the London School of Economics in 1981.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/roderick-macfarquhar-journalist-and-politician-who-became-a-china-scholar-dies-at-88/2019/02/12/844bd6be-2edb-11e9-813a-0ab2f17e305b_story.html|title=Roderick MacFarquhar, journalist and politician who became a China scholar, dies at 88|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|access-date=November 7, 2021}}</ref>

==Political career==

{{Unreferenced section|date=January 2024}}

In the [[1966 United Kingdom general election|1966 general election]], MacFarquhar fought the [[Ealing South (UK Parliament constituency)|Ealing South]] constituency for the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]] but failed to dislodge the sitting [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] MP. Two years later, he was Labour candidate who attempted to retain the [[Meriden (UK Parliament constituency)|Meriden]] seat in a [[1968 Meriden by-election|by-election]]; he was on the wrong end of an 18.4% [[swing (politics)|swing]] at the height of the [[Harold Wilson|Wilson]] government's unpopularity.{{citation needed|date=February 2019}}

Following the defeat of [[George Brown, Baron George-Brown|George Brown]] in 1970 and favourable boundary changes, MacFarquhar was selected to fight the [[Belper (UK Parliament constituency)|Belper]] constituency, and at the [[February 1974 United Kingdom general election|February 1974 general election]] succeeded in winning the seat from its sitting Conservative MP [[Geoffrey Stewart-Smith]]. Although he won, there was an estimated swing of 4% to the Conservatives had the same boundaries applied in the previous election.{{citation needed|date=February 2019}}

MacFarquhar proved a moderate figure, in line with Brown's views. He abstained on a vote to remove the disqualification of left-wing Labour councillors in [[Clay Cross]] who had broken council housing laws enacted by the previous Conservative government. However, there were exceptions: he also abstained on a vote to increase the [[Civil list]] payments on 26 February 1975. He acted as [[Parliamentary Private Secretary]] (PPS) to [[David Ennals]], a minister of the state at the [[Foreign and Commonwealth Office]], and retained the job when Ennals was promoted to be [[Secretary of State for Social Services]]. He was made a member of the Select Committee on Science and Technology.

==After Parliament==

{{Unreferenced section|date=January 2024}}

In 1978 MacFarquhar resigned his office as PPS after voting against the Government. In that year, he became a Governor of the [[School of Oriental and African Studies]], a [[University of London]] constituent body. The post gave him a job which he could do if he lost his seat. In the [[1979 United Kingdom general election|1979 general election]], MacFarquhar did indeed lose by 800 votes, and returned to academia and broadcasting (returning to "24 Hours" for a year).

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He was a scholar of Chinese politics from the founding of the [[People's Republic of China|People's Republic]] through to the [[Cultural Revolution]]. Volume three of his study ''The Origins of the Cultural Revolution: The Coming of the Cataclysm 1961-1966'' (1997) won the [[Joseph Levenson Book Prize]] for 1999.

In a statistical overview derived from writings by and about Roderick MacFarquhar, [[OCLC]]/[[WorldCat]] encompasses roughly 140+ works in 330+ publications in 11 languages and 15,700+ library holdings<ref>[http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/identities/default.htm WorldCat Identities]: [http://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n50-42024 Macfarqhar, Roderick], Worldcat.org</ref>

==Personal life==

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MacFarquhar died from [[heart failure]] at a hospital in [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]] on 10 February 2019, at age 88.<ref>{{Cite web | title=Roderick MacFarquhar, Former Director of the Fairbank Center, 1930-2019 | url=https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/roderick-macfarquhar-former-director-of-the-fairbank-center-1930-2019/ | date=11 February 2019| accessdate=11 February 2019 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news|title = Roderick MacFarquhar, Eminent China Scholar, Dies at 88|work = [[The New York Times]]|url = https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/12/obituaries/roderick-macfarquhar-dead.html|last = Perlez|first = Jane|date = 12 February 2019|accessdate = 5 March 2021}}</ref>

==Selected worksBibliography==

{{Expand list|date=July 2021}}

In a statistical overview derived from writings by and about Roderick MacFarquhar, [[OCLC]]/[[WorldCat]] encompasses roughly 140+ works in 330+ publications in 11 languages and 15,700+ library holdings<ref>[http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/identities/default.htm WorldCat Identities]: [http://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n50-42024 Macfarqhar, Roderick]</ref>

{{dynamic list}}

===Books===

* ''The Hundred Flowers Campaign and the Chinese Intellectuals'' (1960)

* {{cite book <!--|author=MacFarquhar, Roderick--> |title=The Hundred Flowers Campaign and the Chinese intellectuals |___location= |publisher= |year=1960}}

* ''China Under Mao: Politics Takes Command'' (1963)

* ''[httphttps://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/objectsDocuments/lse:cim826jotDetail/chinese-ambitions-and-british-policy-1966/107465 Chinese ambitions and British policy]'' Fabian tract (1966)

* ''Sino-American Relations: 1949-1971'' (1972)

* ''The Forbidden City'' (1972)

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* ''The Origins of the Cultural Revolution - 2. The Great Leap Forward, 1958-1960'' (1983)

* ''The People's Republic: The Emergence of Revolutionary China, 1949-1965'' (1987)

* The Secret Speeches of Chairman Mao: From the Hundred Flowers to the Great Leap Forward (1989)

* ''The Politics of China, 1949-1989'' (1993)

* ''Towards a New World Order'' (1993)

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* ''The Paradox of China's Post-Mao Reforms'' (1999)

* ''[[Mao's Last Revolution]]'' (2006), with [[Michael Schoenhals]], Belknap Press of [[Harvard University Press]], Cambridge, Massachusetts, {{ISBN|9780674023321}}.

* ''The Politics of China: Sixty Years of The People's Republic of China'' (2011)

===Book References reviews===

{|class='wikitable sortable' width='90%'

=== Citations ===

|-

{{Reflist}}

!|Year

!class='unsortable'|Review article

!class='unsortable'|Work(s) reviewed

|-

|2007

|{{cite journal |author=MacFarquhar, Roderick |date=June 28, 2007 |title=Mission to Mao |journal=The New York Review of Books |volume=54 |issue=11 |pages=67–71}}

|{{cite book |author=MacMillan, Margaret |author-link=Margaret MacMillan |title=Nixon and Mao : the week that changed the world | publisher=Random House | year=2007}}

|}

=== Sources =Notes==

{{refbeginreflist}}

* Suleski, Ronald Stanley. (2005). ''The Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University: a Fifty Year History, 1955-2005.'' Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. {{ISBN|9780976798002}}; [http://www.worldcat.org/title/fairbank-center-for-east-asian-research-at-harvard-university-a-fifty-year-history-1955-2005/oclc/064140358 OCLC 64140358]

==References==

{{refend}}

* Suleski, Ronald Stanley. (2005). ''The Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University: a Fifty Year History, 1955-2005.'' Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. {{ISBN|9780976798002}}; [httphttps://www.worldcat.org/title/fairbank-center-for-east-asian-research-at-harvard-university-a-fifty-year-history-1955-2005/oclc/064140358 OCLC 64140358]

== External links ==

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* [https://scholar.harvard.edu/roderickmacfarquhar Home page] at Harvard.

* [http://www.nybooks.com/authors/589 MacFarquhar's reviews] for [[The New York Review of Books]].

* [https://www.sms.cam.ac.uk/media/2572998 Interviewed by Alan Macfarlane 6th6 April and 16th16 June 2017 (video)]

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{{succession box | before=[[Geoffrey Stewart-Smith]] | title=[[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]] for [[Belper (UK Parliament constituency)|Belper]] | years=[[February 1974 United Kingdom general election|February 1974]]–[[1979 United Kingdom general election|1979]] | after=[[Sheila Faith]] }}

{{s-end}}

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[[Category:1930 births]]

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[[Category:UK MPs 1974]]

[[Category:UK MPs 1974–1979]]

[[Category:20th-century English businesspeople]]

[[Category:Historians of the Cultural Revolution]]

[[Category:Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies people]]