Author Biography of America and China

John King Fairbank is the world's most prestigious observer of China. He studied, traveled, and taught in China during World War II, and from 1955-1973 Fairbank was director of the Center for East Asian Studies at Harvard University and held the Francis Lee Higginson Chair of History at Harvard. Until his death (1991), he led scholarship on China in the United States. Many of today's most influential experts on China in the United States are under his tutelage. On the eve of the formal establishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and China, his book The United States and China was on the desk of the top leaders of the two countries.

Fei's major books include The United States and China, The Great Chinese Revolution 1800-1985, China Watch, and China: Tradition and Change. China: Tradition and Transformation. He has also edited The Cambridge History of China.