Editing Ray Huang

{{Short description|Chinese-American philosopher and historian (1918–2000)}}
{{More citations needed|date=September 2013}}{{Infobox scientist
| name = Ray Huang
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1918|6|25}}
| birth_place = [[Ningxiang]], [[Hunan]], [[Republic of China (1912–1949)|Republic of China]]<ref name="黄仁宇 ">{{cite web
 |url          = http://www.lishou.com/2003/nxszdsgmr.htm
 |script-title = zh:宁乡四中的三个名人
 |access-date   = 2003-11-21
 |language     = zh
 |url-status      = dead
 |archive-url   = https://web.archive.org/web/20040601104505/http://www.lishou.com/2003/nxszdsgmr.htm
 |archive-date  = 2004-06-01
}}</ref>
| death_date = {{Death date and age|2000|1|8|1918|6|25}}
| death_place = [[New York City]]
| alma_mater=[[Nankai University]]<br />[[University of Michigan]]
| field=[[Macro history]]
| workplaces=[[Columbia University]]<br />[[State University of New York at New Paltz]]<br />[[Center for East Asian Research]]<br />[[Cambridge University]]
| spouse=Gayle Bates
| awards=
| doctoral_advisor=[[Yu Ying-shih]]
| module={{Infobox Chinese
|child=yes
|t=黃仁宇
|s=黄仁宇
|p=Huáng Rényǔ
|w=Huang<sup>2</sup> Jen<sup>2</sup>-yü<sup>3</sup>
|mi={{IPAc-cmn|h|uang|2|-|r|en|2|.|yu|3}}
}}
}}

'''Ray Huang''' ({{zh|t=黃仁宇|p=Huáng Rényǔ}}; 25 June 1918{{snd}}8 January 2000) was a [[Chinese-American]] [[historian]] and [[philosopher]] who was an officer in the [[National Revolutionary Army]] and fought in the [[Burma Campaign]]. In 1964, Huang earned a Ph.D. in history from the [[University of Michigan]]. He worked with [[Joseph Needham]] and was a contributor to Needham's ''[[Science and Civilisation in China]]''. Huang taught history at universities in the US and the UK, and he is best known in his later years for the idea of [[macro-history]].

==Early life==
Ray Huang was born in [[Ningxiang]], [[Hunan Province]], in 1918.<ref name="黄仁宇 " /> He was the oldest of three children. His father, Huang Zhenbai ({{lang|zh-Hans|黄震白}}), was an early member of the revolutionary group [[Tongmenghui]] but became less active in the group over the years.{{cn|date=October 2024}} Huang grew up in Hunan and went on to study [[electrical engineering]] at [[Nankai University]], [[Tianjin]], in 1936. At the outbreak of the [[Second Sino-Japanese War]] in 1938, he returned to [[Changsha]] and wrote for the ''Anti-Japanese War Report'' ({{lang|zh|《抗日战报》}}).{{cn|date=October 2024}}

Soon afterwards, Huang entered the [[Whampoa Military Academy|Republic of China Military Academy]] ({{lang|zh-Hant|中華民國陸軍官校}}) at [[Chengdu]], [[Sichuan]], and graduated in 1940. He was appointed a [[Second Lieutenant]] Platoon Leader in 1941 and was posted as a staff [[First Lieutenant]] stationed in [[India]] in 1942.{{cn|date=October 2024}} He then was a Staff [[Major (rank)|Major]] in the [[New First Army]] in the [[China Burma India Theater of World War II|Burma Theater]] from 1943 to 1945. While in Burma, he was shot through the thigh but made a complete recovery.{{cn|date=October 2024}} After the war he attended the [[United States Army Command and General Staff College|US Army Staff College]], graduated in 1947, and was aide-de-camp to the head of the Chinese military delegation participating in the [[Allied occupation of Japan]] from 1949 to 1950.{{cn|date=October 2024}} However, with the victory of the Communists in the Chinese Civil War and the escape from [[Mainland China]] of the Nationalist Army in 1949, the latter was purged of political opponents in 1950. Huang's superior in [[Japan]] was accused of Communist links and so Huang was discharged from the Nationalist Army in 1950, which ended his military career.{{cn|date=October 2024}}

==Academic career==
{{Unreferencedsect|date=October 2024}}
Huang went to the United States to study [[Chinese history]]. At the [[University of Michigan]], he received his [[bachelor's degree]] in 1954, his [[master's degree]] in 1957, and his [[doctorate]] in 1964. He was appointed visiting [[associate professor]] at [[Columbia University]] in 1967, and a [[professor]] at the [[State University of New York]], New Paltz Branch, from 1968 to 1980. He was a research fellow at the [[Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies|Fairbank Center for East Asian Research]] at Harvard in 1970.

He worked with the leading American [[Sinologist]] [[John K. Fairbank]]. Nevertheless, Huang and Fairbank disagreed in research methodology. Fairbank liked concentrated analysis in short time frames and limited areas, but Huang liked synthesis covering broad time periods (though Huang's classic work ''[[1587, a Year of No Significance]]'' had a very tight focus).

In 1972, Huang went to [[Cambridge University]] and assisted [[Joseph Needham]], who was more sympathetic to Huang's research approach, in Needham's monumental work on the history of Chinese science and technology. Huang's chosen field of study became financial administration in [[Ming China]], and he published one of his major works, ''Taxation and Finance in Sixteenth Century Ming China'', in 1974 (translated into Chinese only in 2001).

Huang returned to Cambridge in the mid-1970s and contributed two chapters to the Ming Dynasty Volumes of ''[[The Cambridge History of China]]''. Around the late 1970s, he retired from teaching and focused on writing instead and even occasionally contributed to a column in ''[[Yazhou Zhoukan]]''. Nonetheless, he often travelled to [[Taiwan]] even after his retirement to give lectures and participate in various academic exchanges.

His other works include ''The War in Northern Burma'' (1946), ''1587, a Year of No Significance'' (1981) (also published in Chinese as ''The Fifteenth Year of Wan Li''/[[:zh:萬曆十五年|《萬曆十五年》]], 1985), ''Broadening the Chinese Field of Vision'' (in Chinese, 1988), ''Chinese Macrohistory'' (1988) (in Chinese 1993), ''Conversations about Chinese History on the Banks of the Hudson River'' (in Chinese 1989), ''Discussions of Here and There and Old and New'' (in Chinese 1991), ''Capitalism and the Twenty First Century'' (in Chinese 1991), ''From a Macrohistory Perspective in Reading Jiang Jieshi's Diary'' (in Chinese 1993), ''Contemporary Chinese Outlets'' (in Chinese 1994), ''The Affair of Wan Chong'' (in Chinese 1998), ''Yellow River Blue Mountain: Record of Huang Renzi's Recollections'' (in Chinese 2001), and ''Bianjing Unfinished Dreams''.

==Personal life==
Huang married Gayle Bates (1937–2000) in 1966. The two had a son, Jefferson, a longtime administrator at [[Claremont McKenna College]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.cmc.edu/admission/admission-and-financial-aid-staff|title=Meet Our Admission Officers &#124; Claremont McKenna College}}</ref> as well as two other sons from his wife's previous marriage.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/jacksonsun/obituary.aspx?n=gayle-huang&pid=144661905| title = Gayle Huang Obituary (2000) - Beech Bluff, TN - The Jackson Sun| website = [[Legacy.com]]}}</ref> Huang died of a [[heart attack]] in 2000.

==Books==
*''[[1587, a Year of No Significance]]''. First published in English (Yale University Press, 1981), with Chinese (''Wanli Shiwunian'') and other language translations.
*''China: A Macro History''
*''Fiscal Administration during the Ming Dynasty''
*''Conversation on Chinese History by the Hudson River'' (in Chinese)
*''Broadening the Horizons of Chinese History: Discourses, Syntheses, and Comparisons''
*''Capitalism and the 21st Century''(in Chinese)
*''The Grand Canal during the Ming Dynasty, 1368-1644'' (Doctoral dissertation)
*''White Jasmine of Changsha'' (Novel)
*''Taxation and Governmental Finance in Sixteenth-Century Ming China''

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Huang, Ray}}
[[Category:1918 births]]
[[Category:2000 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American historians]]
[[Category:20th-century American male writers]]
[[Category:20th-century Chinese historians]]
[[Category:20th-century American philosophers]]
[[Category:20th-century Chinese philosophers]]
[[Category:American academics of Chinese descent]]
[[Category:Chinese emigrants to the United States]]
[[Category:Chinese people of World War II]]
[[Category:Columbia University faculty]]
[[Category:Educators from Hunan]]
[[Category:Harvard Fellows]]
[[Category:Historians from Hunan]]
[[Category:Historians of China]]
[[Category:Changjun High School alumni]]
[[Category:Nankai University alumni]]
[[Category:People from Ningxiang]]
[[Category:Philosophers from Hunan]]
[[Category:University of Michigan alumni]]
[[Category:Whampoa Military Academy alumni]]
[[Category:Writers from Changsha]]
[[Category:American male non-fiction writers]]