The Winner of the 8th Iue Asia Pacific Culture Prize : Dr. Ezra F. Vogel

Picture　Dr. Ezra F. Vogel

He received his B.A. at Ohio Wesleyan University in 1950 and his Ph.D. in sociology at Harvard in 1958. He then spent two years in Japan conducting research. In 1960-61, he was assistant professor at Yale University and from 1961-62 through 1963-64 a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard, studying Chinese language and history. He remained at Harvard, becoming lecturer in 1964 and professor in 1967. Professor Vogel succeeded John Fairbank as second Director (1972-1977) of Harvard's East Asian Research Center and second Chairman of the Council for East Asian Studies (1977-1980). He was Director of the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations at the Center for International Affairs (1980-1987) and, since 1987, Honorary Director. He was director of the Undergraduate Concentration in East Asian Studies from its inception in 1972 until 1989. In 1993 he took a two-year leave of absence, serving as National Intelligence Officer for East Asia at the National Intelligence Council. He returned to Harvard in September 1995 to direct the Fairbank Center until 1999 and was head of the Asia Center from 1997 to 1999. He taught courses on communist Chinese society, Japanese society, and industrial East Asia. The Japanese edition of Professor Vogel's book Japan as Number One: Lessons for America (1979) remains the all-time best-seller in Japan of non-fiction by a Western author. He retired from teaching on June 30, 2000. Since retirement he has been working on a book on Deng Xiaoping and his Era.

Reason for Selecting Dr. Ezra Vogel for the 8th Iue Asia Pacific Culture Prize

Winner: Dr. Ezra F. Vogel

Dr. Ezra F. Vogel is an authority of Japan-Asia studies in the United States and the author of Japan as No. 1: Lessons for America (Harvard UP, 1979), which became a best seller in both Japan and the United States. He has maintained for many years that the United States should have learned from Japan. He worked hard with foresight to build bridges between the Far East and the United States through instructional activities, writing, and lectures. He unveiled the secret of the economic development of Asian countries, in particular, including Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore as well as Japan, and he has been transmitting information on Asia to the rest of the world through his books. He taught the industrialization of Chinese society, Japanese society and the other East Asian society at Harvard University. He is proficient in Chinese as well as Japanese, and presently he is working with keen interest on research on China (research on Deng Xiao-ping). Dr. Vogel has been consistently analyzing Japan and other East Asian countries and energetically transmitting information through a variety of media including his writing to Western countries, which greatly contribute to the world's understanding of East Asia, thus deserving the Asia Pacific Culture Prize.