Ross Terrill

Ross Gladwin Terrill (22 August 1938 – 2 August 2024) was an Australian-born American political scientist and historian. He was best known for his studies in the history of China, especially the history of the People's Republic of China. He testified in front of committees of the United States Congress, and he wrote numerous articles and nine books. For many years he was a research associate at Harvard's Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, and he was a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin, as well as a visiting professor at Monash University in Australia.

Early life Ross Gladwin Terrill was born in Melbourne, Australia, on 22 August 1938, to Miriel (Lloyd) Terrill and Frank Gregston. Terrill grew up in Bruthen, Victoria, and attended Wesley College in Melbourne, where he became Dux in 1956. Terrill also mentioned that upon his arrival in the Beijing airport, he was met with a guide from the China International Travel Service, so as to ensure he could appropriately experience New China. In Terrill's 'An Australian Gets to Beijing, 1964', his early fascination with the Chinese government and Mao Zedong in particular became clear in which he depicts his exploration of China including their buildings, hotels, government and religion. His work also aided in describing the cultural differences between the Western and Eastern civilisation in their food preferences. Knight continues that although Terrill does utilise some updated sources from China, these missing theoretical texts by Mao might have provided an insight into the influence of Marxism. According to Knight, Mao: A Biography could benefit from updated sources. The book includes Terrill's reflections on his travels in China since 1964. Liu writes that the book is "rich in information, revealing in dialogue, captivating in description and highly readable". Terrill responds to Woo's critique of his work by arguing that he fails to provide a description of what The New Chinese Empire and What It Means for the United States is truly about and, therefore, the reader of Woo's review is bound to be confused.

After a period of declining health, Terrill died at his home in Boston on 2 August 2024, at the age of 85.

Achievements/Awards Throughout his life, Terrill received many awards for his works including the following: Exhibition in Political Science (University of Melbourne, 1957) Frank Knox Memorial Fellowship (Harvard University, 1965, 1966) Sumner Prize for PhD. Thesis (Harvard University, 1970) National Magazine Award for Reporting Excellence (1972) George Polk Memorial Award for Outstanding Magazine Reporting (1972) Los Angeles Times Book Prize for his book The New Chinese Empire (2004) Curtin-MacArthur Leadership Award (2006)

Selected publications ed., China Profile (Boston: Beacon Press, 1970) Bruce Douglass Ross Terrill, ed., China and Ourselves: Explorations and Revisions by a New Generation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1970) 800000000: The Real China (Boston: Little, Brown 1972) R. H. Tawney and His Times; Socialism as Fellowship (Cambridge, Massachusetts,: Harvard University Press, 1973) Flowers on an Iron Tree: Five Cities of China (Boston: Little, Brown, 1975) The Future of China: After Mao (New York: Dell Pub. Co., 1978) ed., The China Difference (New York: Harper & Row, 1979) The White-Boned Demon: A Biography of Madame Mao Zedong (New York: Morrow, 1984) The Australians (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987) China in Our Time: The Epic Saga of the People's Republic from the Communist Victory to Tiananmen Square and Beyond (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992) Mao: A Biography (New York: Harper & Row, 1980; rev. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999) The Australians: The Way We Live Now, Random House, Sydney (2000) The New Chinese Empire: And What It Means for the United States (New York: Basic Books, 2003) ed., The Future of Chinese Imperialism, in Empire and the Future of World Order, Johnson, Stockholm, 2007 Australian Bush to Tiananmen Square, Hamilton Books, London; New York (2020)