On April 12, Ezra Feivel Vogel, the author of Deng Xiaoping’s Era and former director of John King Fairbank Center for East Asian Research, delivered a speech titled Deng Xiaoping and China’s Political and Economic Reforms.
The 83-year old expert in East Asian research made his speech with humor in fluent mandarin Chinese, which made the audience laugh all the time. At Harvard University, Vogel has a nickname of “Chinaman” as he has studied the contemporary Chinese history since 1963. The book Deng Xiaoping’s Era, published by Beijing Sanlian Bookstore on January 18, is his third books of studies on China.
In 2000, he retired at the age of 70 and then spent 10 years finishing the monograph of 0.64 million words on Deng Xiaoping and the reformation of China. The English version of Deng Xiaoping’s Era attracted widespread attention immediately after it had been published in September, 2011, and won the Lionel Gelber Prize, the highest prize of the 2012 English literature in the field of global foreign affairs by defeating the former U.S. secretary Henry Kissinger's On China.
When it came to why he had chosen to spend 10 years writing a Deng Xiaoping’s biography, he said frankly: “Since my retirement from Harvard University, I have thought about writing a book to help Americans know more about China, because I think the two most important countries in the 21st century are China and America. Although the two countries are quite different in culture, history and views, many problems like the maintenance of the world’s order need their cooperation. To me, the most important is to understand China’s reform and opening-up period, during which Deng Xiaoping is the leader.”
In ECNU, Vogel focused his speech on how Deng Xiaoping had promoted China’s reform and opening-up at the end of the Cultural Revolution.
Written by: Yao Run
Edited by: Liu Jinyu
