Immanuel C. Y. Hsu, a leading authority on the history of modern China and Professor Emeritus at University of California Santa Barbara, died at his Santa Barbara home October 24, 2005 of complications due to heart failure. He was 82. Dr. Hsu was born in Ningpo (Zhejiang) China in 1923, and grew up in Shanghai. After graduating from Yenching University, he spent two years in Japan as part of the official Chinese delegation in Tokyo. He came to the United States to complete a M.A. at the University of Minnesota, and a Ph.D. in modern diplomatic history from Harvard University. Hsu was awarded a Harvard Yenching Fellowship (1950-54) and was appointed a Research Fellow at Harvard's East Asian Research Center (1955-58).
Dr.Hsu began his distinguished scholarly career at University of California Santa Barbara 1959 and continued teaching until his retirement in 1991. In 1962 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. During the following year he and his wife, Dolores M. Hsu, Professor of Music at UCSB, traveled in Europe and Asia lecturing and visiting research institutes in Germany, Italy, London, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Hsu served as Chair of the History Department from 1970 to 1973, and was named Faculty Research Lecturer in 1971. His publications include Intellectual Trends in the Ch'ing Period (1959); China's Entrance into the Family of Nations: The Diplomatic Phase, 1858-1880 (1960); The Iii Crisis: A Study of Sino-Russian Diplomacy, 1871-1881 (1965); and The Rise of Modern China (1970). A unique and prize-winning study of the development of the Chinese nation from the Ming dynasty to the present, The Rise of Modern China is now in its sixth edition and has been translated into several foreign languages including Chinese. An enthusiastic music lover, Dr. Hsu was a devoted student of the violin, playing and collecting instruments throughout his life. Throughout the years he and his wife traveled extensively, enjoying the pleasures of collecting Chinese art and furniture.
Dr. Hsu is survived by his wife, Dolores; his son, Vadim; daughter-in-law, Carmen; and three grandchildren, Sofia Allegra, Alexander Francis (Sasha), and John Philip Pablo. (Source: Santa Barbara News-Press, Oct. 27, 2005).