Michael Loewe

Michael Arthur Nathan Loewe (2 November 1922 – 1 January 2025) was a British historian, Sinologist, and writer who authored dozens of books, articles, and other publications in the fields of Classical Chinese as well as the history of ancient and early Imperial China. He was a professor of Chinese and a fellow at the University of Cambridge for nearly 60 years.

Life and career Loewe was born on 2 November 1922 in Oxford, England, to a distinguished Anglo-Jewish family. His great-grandfather Louis Loewe (1809–1888) was a Prussian Silesian professor of Oriental studies and theology who served as the personal secretary of the British Jewish businessman, financier, and philanthropist Moses Montefiore. Loewe's father, Herbert Loewe, was a professor of Semitic languages who taught at both Cambridge University and Oxford University. Loewe's mother, Ethel Victoria Hyamson, was the sister of the British official and historian Albert Hyamson. His elder brother Raphael Loewe (1919–2011) was a professor of Hebrew and Jewish studies at University College London. Loewe was married to Carmen Blacker, a scholar of the Japanese language.

Loewe attended secondary school at The Perse School in Cambridge, then entered Magdalen College, Oxford. Following the outbreak of war with Japan in December 1941, Loewe was assigned to learn Japanese at the secret Bedford Japanese School run by Captain Oswald Tuck RN. He was on the first course, which began in February 1942 and lasted for five months. Towards the end of the course some training in cryptography was given. After completing the course Loewe was posted to Bletchley Park, where he worked in the Naval Section until the end of the war. He studied Mandarin Chinese in his spare time.

During a six-month stay in Beijing in 1947, Loewe became interested in traditional and historical Chinese topics, which he began studying at the School of African and Oriental Studies, University of London after returning to Britain. SOAS awarded him a Ph.D. in 1963, and he subsequently joined the faculty at Cambridge, where he taught until retiring in 1990 to focus solely on research and scholarship. He was a fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge.

Loewe turned 100 on 2 November 2022, and died on 1 January 2025, aged 102.

Honours Royal Asiatic Society, member. American Academy of Arts and Sciences, honorary member. 2021 Distinguished Contributions to China Studies Award, presented by the World Forum on China Studies

A unique award in Loewe's honour exists at Cambridge: the "Michael Loewe Prize" may be awarded annually to one or more undergraduate candidates who have achieved distinction in literary Chinese.

Selected works Books

— (1968). Everyday Life in Early Imperial China During the Han Period. London: B.T. Batsford. Reprinted (1988), New York: Dorset Press.

—; Shaughnessy, Edward, eds. (1999). The Cambridge History of Ancient China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Articles