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each synthesizing scholarship in the field for students and the general public

 
 
Reply Wed 18 May, 2011 01:24 am

each synthesizing scholarship in the field for students and the general public
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each edition containing scholarship in the field for students and for the general public?

What puzzles me is that is there a scholarship for the general public?

Context:

When he returned to Harvard after the war, Fairbank inaugurated a Master's Degree program in Area Studies. Harvard at that time was one of several major universities in the United States with Asian study programs. The Area Studies approach at Harvard was multi-disciplinary and aimed to train journalists, government officials, and others who did not want careers in academia. This broad approach, combined with Fairbank's experience in China during the war, shaped his United States and China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Foreign Policy Library, 1948). This survey went through new editions in 1958 and 1970, each synthesizing scholarship in the field for students and the general public. In the 1960s, he studied Chinese at the Taipei Language Institute.[3] In 1972, in preparation for Nixon's visit, the book was read by leaders on both sides.[4]

Fairbank was among the so-called China Hands who predicted the victory of Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communist Party and advocated establishing relations with the new government. Although Fairbank argued that this would be in the American national interest, many Americans accused the China Hands of selling out an ally and promoting the spread of Communism and Soviet influence. In 1949, Fairbank was targeted for criticism of being "soft" on Communism, and was denied a visa to visit Japan. In 1952, he testified before the McCarran Committee, but his secure position at Harvard protected him. Ironically, many of Fairbank's Chinese friends and colleagues who returned to China after 1949, such as Fei Xiaotong and Chen Han-seng, would later be attacked for being "pro-American" as the Chinese Communist party became more rigidly communist.[5]
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Setanta
 
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Reply Wed 18 May, 2011 02:50 am
The noun scholarship also means the approach to a subject of a scholar, an approach to a subject based on the careful study of available sources, as free from prejudice as possible. This the definition used in this context. It means that the 1958 and 1970 editions each combined careful study of Sinology to produce a synthesis which could be understood both by students of Sinology and by the general public.

As another example, i have often upset people by my comments on Edward Gibbon, famous for writing The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. My principle criticism of Gibbon is that this work is a potboiler, heavily influenced by his prejudices, but that his scholarship is faultless. That means that i have no respect for his conclusions or his synthesis, but that he very carefully examined all the records he could find, and he presents the evidence as thoroughly as possible. His ideas are trite, naive, shallow and bigoted. His careful study of the Roman Empire from the Antonines to the fall of Constantinople to the Turks is of the very highest order.

Scholarship here refers to the careful and thorough study of a subject. It has nothing to with getting a check for going to school.
oristarA
 
  1  
Reply Wed 18 May, 2011 05:48 am
@Setanta,
Excellent!

Thank you.
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