Jerome Ch'en

Jerome Ch'en FRSC (Chinese: 陳志讓; pinyin: Chén Zhìràng; October 2, 1919 – June 17, 2019) was a Chinese-Canadian historian who served as Chinese history professor at York University in Toronto, Ontario, Canada from 1971 to 1987. He was the director of the University of Toronto/York University Joint Centre of Asia Pacific Studies (JCAPS) from 1983 to 1985. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1981. In 1984, he was named Distinguished Research Professor at York.

Ch'en was born as Ch'en Chih-jang in Chengdu, Sichuan, Republic of China in October 1919. He was educated at Tianjin Nankai University, National Southwestern Associated University in Kunming during the Anti-Japanese War, and at the London School of Economics, which he attended funded by a Boxer Indemnity Scholarship. He studied under Friedrich Hayek at LSE. In the 1950s, he worked for the Chinese Service of the BBC. Before emigrating to Canada he taught history at the University of Leeds for a number of years. Ch'en died in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada in June 2019 at the age of 99.

Principal works include:

• The Highlanders of Central China: a History 1895 – 1937
• Mao and the Chinese Revolution
• The Military-Gentry coalition—the Warlords Period in Modern Chinese History
• China and the West: Society and Culture 1815 – 1937

He also edited:

• Great Lives Observed: Mao

Some of his works have been translated into Chinese or Japanese.