Michael Loewe

{{Short description|British sinologist and historian (1922–2025)}} {{Hatnote|For the Romanian boxer fighting under the same name see Mihai Leu}} {{for|the British mechanical engineer|Michael Lowe}} {{Use British English|date=November 2017}} {{Use dmy dates|date=November 2017}} {{Infobox scientist | name = Michael Loewe | image = Professor Michael Loewe, 2005.jpg | alt = | caption = Loewe in 2005 | birth_name = Michael Arthur Nathan Loewe | birth_date = {{nowrap|{{birth date|df=yes|1922|11|02}}}} | birth_place = Oxford, England | death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|2025|01|01|1922|11|02}} | death_place = | death_cause = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates =  | other_names = | residence = | citizenship = | nationality = | relatives = Louis Loewe (great-grandfather) Herbert Loewe (father) Albert Montefiore Hyamson (uncle) | fields = Chinese history | workplaces = Cambridge University | patrons = | education = SOAS University of London (BA, PhD) | alma_mater = | thesis_title =  | thesis_url =  | thesis_year =  | doctoral_advisor =  | academic_advisors = | doctoral_students = | notable_students = | known_for = | influences = | influenced = | awards = | author_abbrev_bot = | author_abbrev_zoo = | spouse = {{marriage|Carmen Blacker|2002|2009|end=died}} | partner =  | children = | signature =  | signature_alt = | website =  | footnotes = | module = {{Infobox Chinese | child = yes | t = 魯惟一 | s = 鲁惟一 | p = Lǔ Wéiyī | w = Lu3 Wei2-i1 | gr = Luu Weii }} }}

'''Michael Arthur Nathan Loewe''' (2 November 1922 – 1 January 2025) was a British historian, Sinologist, and writer who authored dozens of books, articles, and other publications in the fields of Classical Chinese as well as the history of ancient and early Imperial China. He was a professor of Chinese and a fellow at the University of Cambridge for nearly 60 years.

== Life and career == Loewe was born on 2 November 1922 in Oxford, England, to a distinguished Anglo-Jewish family.<ref>{{cite book|title=International Who's Who of Authors and Writers 2004|date=2003|publisher=Europa Publications|isbn=1857431790}}</ref> His great-grandfather Louis Loewe (1809–1888) was a Prussian Silesian professor of Oriental studies and theology who served as the personal secretary of the British Jewish businessman, financier, and philanthropist Moses Montefiore. Loewe's father, Herbert Loewe, was a professor of Semitic languages who taught at both Cambridge University and Oxford University. Loewe's mother, Ethel Victoria Hyamson, was the sister of the British official and historian Albert Hyamson. His elder brother Raphael Loewe (1919–2011) was a professor of Hebrew and Jewish studies at University College London. Loewe was married to Carmen Blacker, a scholar of the Japanese language.

Loewe attended secondary school at The Perse School in Cambridge, then entered Magdalen College, Oxford. Following the outbreak of war with Japan in December 1941, Loewe was assigned to learn Japanese at the secret Bedford Japanese School run by Captain Oswald Tuck RN. He was on the first course, which began in February 1942 and lasted for five months. Towards the end of the course some training in cryptography was given. After completing the course Loewe was posted to Bletchley Park, where he worked in the Naval Section until the end of the war.<ref>Peter Kornicki, ''Captain Oswald Tuck and the Bedford Japanese School, 1942-1945'' (London: Pollino Publishing, 2019). See also Michael Loewe, 'Japanese naval codes', in F. H. Hinsley and Alan Stripp, eds, ''Codebreakers: the Inside Story of Bletchley Park'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 257-63.</ref> He studied Mandarin Chinese in his spare time.<ref name="3Q">[http://sawerc.hypotheses.org/463 Three Questions to Michael Loewe]</ref>

During a six-month stay in Beijing in 1947, Loewe became interested in traditional and historical Chinese topics, which he began studying at the School of African and Oriental Studies, University of London after returning to Britain.<ref name="3Q" /> He received a first class honours degree in Chinese in 1951, and in 1956 he left the government to serve as a lecturer in the History of the Far East at the University of London. From 1960, he stayed in the Kyoto University Research Centre for the Cultural Sciences for his research. His mentor in Kyoto was Shikazo Mori. On his way from the UK to Kyoto, he purchased the ''[https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/295588 Documents of the Han dynasty on wooden slips from Edsin Gol]'' at Taipei, and started research about it. Shikazo Mori and he organized a reading circle of the wooden slips from Edsin Gol, and his study became his book ''Records of Han Administration'' later.<ref>A photo of this reading circle was carried on Momiyama(2014). Akira Momiyama, 2014, History of studies about wooden slips from Edsin Gol in Japan, The borderline of studies between historical texts and unearthed artifacts, volume 2, The Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.</ref><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=uKgNORcGCYYC google book]</ref> SOAS awarded him a Ph.D. in 1963, and he subsequently joined the faculty at Cambridge, where he taught until retiring in 1990 to focus solely on research and scholarship. He was a fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge.

Loewe turned 100 on 2 November 2022,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Happy birthday Michael Loewe! |url=https://royalasiaticsociety.org/happy-birthday-michael-loewe/ |access-date=2024-11-03 |website=Royal Asiatic Society |language=en-GB}}</ref> and died on 1 January 2025, aged 102.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.ames.cam.ac.uk/news/dr-michael-loewe-1922-2025|title=Dr Michael Loewe (1922–2025)|date=6 January 2025|publisher=University of Cambridge – Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies|access-date=6 January 2025}}</ref>

== Honours == * Royal Asiatic Society, member. * American Academy of Arts and Sciences, honorary member. * 2021 Distinguished Contributions to China Studies Award, presented by the World Forum on China Studies<ref>{{Cite web |last=Xing |first=Yi |title=Sinologists recognized for expanding understanding |url=https://global.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202110/20/WS616f7442a310cdd39bc70048.html |access-date=2025-01-06 |website=China Daily}}</ref>

A unique award in Loewe's honour exists at Cambridge: the "Michael Loewe Prize" may be awarded annually to one or more undergraduate candidates who have achieved distinction in literary Chinese.<ref>Cambridge University, Department East Asian Studies: [http://www.ames.cam.ac.uk/deas/chinese/undergraduate.htm Chinese, undergraduate studies.]</ref>

== Selected works == ===Books=== * {{cite book | first = Michael | last = Loewe | title = Imperial China: The Historical Background to the Modern Age | location = London | publisher = George Allen and Unwin | year = 1966 }} * {{cite book | first = Michael | last = Loewe | author-mask=1 | title = Records of Han Administration ''(2 vols.)'' | location = Cambridge | publisher = Cambridge University Press | year = 1967 }} * — (1968). ''Everyday Life in Early Imperial China During the Han Period''. London: B.T. Batsford. Reprinted (1988), New York: Dorset Press. * {{cite book | first = Michael | last = Loewe | author-mask=1 | title = Crisis and Conflict in Han China | location = London | publisher = George Allen and Unwin | year = 1974 }} * {{cite book | first = Michael | last = Loewe | author-mask=1 | title = Ways to Paradise: The Chinese Quest for Immortality | location = London | publisher = George Allen and Unwin | year = 1979 }} * {{cite book | first = Michael | last = Loewe | author-mask=1 | title = Chinese Ideas of Life and Death: Faith, Myth and Reason in the Han Period | location = London | publisher = George Allen and Unwin | year = 1982 }} * {{cite book | editor-first1 = Michael | editor-last1=Loewe | editor-first2 = Denis | editor-last2 = Twitchett | editor-link2 = Denis Twitchett | year = 1986 | title =The Cambridge History of China, vol. 1 | location = Cambridge | publisher = Cambridge University Press }} * {{cite book | first = Michael | last = Loewe | author-mask=1 | title = The Pride that was China | location = London | publisher = Sidgwick and Jackson | year = 1990 }} * {{cite book | editor-first=Michael | editor-last=Loewe | title=Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide | year=1993 | publisher=Society for the Study of Early China; Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California Berkeley | location=Berkeley }} * {{cite book | first = Michael | last = Loewe | author-mask=1 | title = Divination, Mythology and Monarchy in Han China | location = Cambridge | publisher = Cambridge University Press | year = 1994 }} * —; Shaughnessy, Edward, eds. (1999). ''The Cambridge History of Ancient China''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. * {{cite book | first = Michael | last = Loewe | author-mask=1 | title = A Biographical Dictionary of the Qin, Han and Xin Dynasties | title-link=A Biographical Dictionary of the Qin, Former Han and Xin Periods (221 BC – AD 24) | location = Leiden | publisher = Brill | year = 2000 }} * {{cite book | first = Michael | last = Loewe | author-mask=1 | title = The Men who Governed China in Han Times | location = Leiden | publisher = Brill | year = 2004 }} * {{cite book | first = Michael | last = Loewe | author-mask=1 | title = Dong Zhongshu, a "Confucian" heritage and the Chunqiu fanlu | location = Leiden | publisher = Brill | year = 2011 }}

===Articles=== * {{cite journal | first = Michael | last = Loewe | title = Some Han-time Documents from Chü-yen | journal = T'oung Pao | volume = 47 | pages = 294–322 | year = 1959 | doi = 10.1163/156853259X00123 | jstor=4528102 }} * {{cite journal | first = Michael | last = Loewe | author-mask=1 | title = Spices and Silk: Aspects of World Trade in the First Seven Centuries of the Christian Era | journal = Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society | volume = 103 | pages = 166–79 | year = 1971 | issue = 2 | doi = 10.1017/S0035869X0012920X }} * {{cite journal | first = Michael | last = Loewe | author-mask=1 | title = Manuscripts Found Recently in China: A Preliminary Survey | journal = T'oung Pao | volume = 63 | pages = 99–136 | year = 1977 | issue = 2/3 | doi = 10.1163/156853277X00042 | jstor=4528102 }} * {{cite journal | first = Michael | last = Loewe | author-mask=1 | title = The Oracles of the Clouds and the Winds | journal = Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies | volume = 51 | pages = 500–20 | year = 1988 | issue = 3 | doi = 10.1017/S0041977X00116490 }} * {{cite journal | first = Michael | last = Loewe | author-mask=1 | title = China's Sense of Unity as Seen in the Early Empires | journal = T'oung Pao | volume = 80 | pages = 6–26 | year = 1994 | issue = 1/3 | doi = 10.1163/156853294X00034 | jstor=4528619}}

== References == {{Reflist|2}}

; Works cited *[https://web.archive.org/web/20110719020248/http://www.ames.cam.ac.uk/~rs10009/new_page_2.htm Biography of Michel Loewe], Cambridge University.

== External links == * [https://web.archive.org/web/20110719020401/http://www.ames.cam.ac.uk/~rs10009/loewe_scholarship_fund.htm Michael Loewe Scholarship Fund], Cambridge University. * Roel Sterckx [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ1EwJ6QD6Q interviews] Michael Loewe, for [https://www.cambridge.org/core/membership/ssec/conversations Conversations] .

{{DEFAULTSORT:Loewe, Michael}} Category:1922 births Category:2025 deaths Category:Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford Category:Alumni of SOAS University of London Category:British sinologists Category:English historians Category:Jewish English writers Category:Fellows of Clare Hall, Cambridge Category:Jewish historians Category:People educated at The Perse School Category:People from Oxford Category:Scholars of ancient Chinese philosophy Category:British men centenarians Category:Jewish centenarians