Jacques Gernet

Jacques Gernet (; ; 22 December 1921, Algiers, French Algeria – 3 March 2018, Vannes) was an eminent French sinologist of the second half of the 20th century. His best-known work is The Chinese Civilization, a 900-page summary of Chinese history and civilization which has been translated into many languages.

Biography Jacques was the son of Louis Gernet (1882–1962).

Gernet obtained a degree in classics at the University of Algiers in 1942. He then served in World War II from 1942 to 1945. After the war, he started to study the Chinese language. In 1947, he received his degree in Chinese from the National School of Oriental Languages and, in 1948, from the École pratique des hautes études (EPHE). He then became a member of the French School of the Far East, before being a researcher at CNRS and Scholar of the Yomiuri Shimbun in Japan. He received his Doctor of Letters in 1956.

Distinctions

1979: Member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres Chevalier of the Legion of Honour Commander of the Ordre des Palmes académiques

Publications 1949 : Entretiens du maître de dhyâna Chen-houei du Ho-tsö (668-760), Hanoi, EFEO (PEFEO, 31). 1956 : Les Aspects économiques du bouddhisme dans la société chinoise du Ve au Xe siècle, Saigon, EFEO (PEFEO, 39). † 1959 : La Vie quotidienne en Chine à la veille de l'invasion mongole, Paris, Hachette. † 1970 : Catalogue des manuscrits chinois de la Bibliothèque nationale, fonds Pelliot de Touen-houang, vol. 1, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale. With Wu Chi-yü. 1972 : Le Monde chinois, Paris, A. Colin. † Translated as A History of Chinese Civilization, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. (2nd ed.) (English translation) 1982 : Chine et christianisme, action et réaction, Paris, Gallimard. † 1991 : Tang Zhen, Écrits d'un sage encore inconnu, Paris, Gallimard. 1994 : L'Intelligence de la Chine : le social et le mental, Paris, Gallimard. 2005 : La Raison des choses: Essai sur la philosophie de Wang Fuzhi (1619–1692), Paris, Gallimard.

† Translated into English.