Denis Crispin Crispin Crispin Twitchett

Background

Twitchett, Denis Crispin was born on September 23, 1925 in London. Came to the United States, 1980.

Education

Bachelor, Cambridge University, England, 1949. Master of Arts, Cambridge University, England, 1950. Doctor of Philosophy, Cambridge University, 1955.

Career

He read Modern Chinese at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London in 1946-1947 before moving on to read the Oriental Studies at Cambridge from 1947-1950. He was a lecturer at the University of London (1954-1956) and Cambridge (1956-1960), the Chair of Chinese at the universities of London (1960-1968) and Cambridge (1968-1980), and the Gordon Wu "58 Professor of Chinese Studies at Princeton University (1980-1994). He was a fellow of the British Academy from 1967.

He greatly expanded the role of Chinese studies in Western intellectual circles.

During World World War II, Twitchett took a crash course in Japanese and for the remainder of the war he was part of the Bletchley Park operations acting as a listener at one of the forward listening stations in Sri Lanka. After the war he gained a degree in geography at Cambridge.

He also spent a great deal of time in Japan and was able to learn from the best Japanese historians of China (who tended to focus on Tang China, a period which became his field of expertise also). Together they had two children.

Starting in 1966, Professor Twitchett and historian John K. Fairbank (who taught at Harvard) began plans for the first comprehensive history of China to be published in the English language.

Originally expected to be a six volume set of books, the series expanded as time passed and eventually grew to the currently planned 15 volumes. While he was at Princeton, Twitchett worked closely with fellow Sinologist Frederick West. Mote (who had a related wartime experience). Drawing upon the most respected living historians for individual chapters of the books, the series (though still incomplete as of late 2007) is very highly regarded as an authoritative history of China.

Twitchett wrote many sections and guided the creation of the whole series from the start until his death.

Twitchett deliberately held off creating a book on China before the Ch"in because, as Twitchett put it in the preface to Volume 7, there was still so much work to be done on the period.

Achievements

• Denis Crispin Twitchett has been listed as a noteworthy Historian by Marquis Who's Who.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Writing of Official History under the T'ang (Cambridge Studies in Chinese History, Literature and Institutions)

    (This book describes how the Chinese government, between a...)

  • The Birth of the Chinese Meritocracy: Bureaucrats and Examinations in T'ang China
  • (The Writing of Official History under the T'ang) Author: Denis Twitchett published on (December, 2003)
  • Financial Administration under the T'ang Dynasty (University of Cambridge Oriental Publications)
  • Printing and Publishing in Medieval China
  • The Writing of Official History under the T'ang (Cambridge Studies in Chinese History, Literature and Institutions) by Twitchett, Denis (2002) Paperback

Membership

Fellow British Academy.

Interests

• Music, fine arts

Connections

Married Umeko Ichikawa, February 18, 1956. Married Umeko Ichikawa (deceased 1993), children: Peter, Nicholas.

Spouse:

Umeko Ichikawa

child:

Peter Twitchett

child:

Nicholas Twitchett