Interview with Frederic Wakeman, Jr.

Born in Kansas City, Kansas, in 1937, reared and educated in the United States and abroad, Wakeman earned his bachelor's degree in European History and Literature at Harvard University, did graduate work in Soviet Studies and Political Theory in Paris, and completed his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Oriental Languages and East Asian History at the University of California, Berkeley. A member of Berkeley's history faculty since 1965, he became the Haas Professor of Asian Studies in 1989 and Director of the Institute of East Asian Studies in 1990. Many of Wakeman's award-winning books on Early Modern, Modern, and Contemporary China have been translated into Chinese. He has held numerous advisory and leadership positions in the American Council of Learned Societies, American Historical Association, Asia Society, and Social Science Research Council, and has facilitated educational and scholarly exchanges with East Asia. The father of two sons and a daughter by a former marriage, Wakeman lives in San Francisco. This interview was conducted on the Berkeley campus in November 1996 by Roger Adelson.