Ezra F. Vogel

Ezra Vogel was born to Joseph and Edith Vogel, a family of Jewish immigrants in 1930 in Delaware, Ohio. As a child, he helped his father in the family's clothing store, known as The People's Store.{{Citation needed|date=September 2023}} He graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1950, and maintained close ties with his alma mater for the rest of his life, donating royalties from his books and returning to campus frequently.{{sfnb|Vogel|2020}} While at Ohio Wesleyan, Vogel was a member of the Beta Sigma Tau fraternity (later merged with the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity).{{Cite web |url=http://pilambdaphi.110mb.com/ |title=Pi Lambda Phi 2010 Membership Directory |access-date=September 24, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110707054627/http://pilambdaphi.110mb.com/ |archive-date=July 7, 2011 |url-status=dead }}

He was drafted{{Cite web|date=2021-01-12|title=Asian voice: Ezra F Vogel|url=https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2021/01/12/asian-voice-ezra-f-vogel/|access-date=2021-01-24|website=East Asia Forum|language=en}} to serve two years in the U.S. Army without seeing combat{{Cite web|last=Rabbit|first=Chairman|title=傅高义教授与笔者邮件往来选登|url=http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzA3MDIzODIwMg==&mid=2458091080&idx=1&sn=6eadffc55d5b0ce0dd351c84c42fa412&chksm=884834ddbf3fbdcba4da81b5fdecf00eb7a125045e9dd3a0a96ed1946d663a17033044b04fa4#rd|access-date=2021-01-24|website=微信公众平台}} during the Korean War.{{Cite web|title=Professor Ezra Vogel|url=https://scholar.harvard.edu/ezravogel/biocv|access-date=2021-01-24|website=scholar.harvard.edu|language=en}} The service involved working for a psychiatric unit of a military hospital.{{Cite web|last=Zhao|first=Xu|title=A son of the West whose passion pointed East|url=https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202101/16/WS6001f8ada31024ad0baa2fa4.html|access-date=2021-01-27|website=www.chinadaily.com.cn}} After discharge, Vogel enrolled in the Department of Social Relations at Harvard and graduated with his PhD in 1958. His advisor was Talcott Parsons. After two years of field work in Japan, he worked as an assistant professor at Yale University from 1960 to 1961, but returned to Harvard for post-doctoral work on Chinese language and history. He was appointed as a lecturer in 1964, later becoming a tenured professor; he remained at Harvard until his retirement.{{sfnb|Harvard University|2020}}

Vogel was involved with several research centers during his career. He was director of Harvard's East Asian Research Center from 1972 to 1977 and chairman of the Council for East Asian Studies from 1977 to 1980. He also was director of the Program on US–Japan Relations at the Center for International Affairs from 1980 to 1987, and was named honorary director upon stepping down.{{sfnb|Harvard University|2020}} He was director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies from 1973 to 1975{{sfnb|Suleski|2005|pp=45–58}} and from 1995 to 1999.{{sfnb|Suleski|2005|p=99}} He was founding director of the Asia Center (1997–1999). He retired on June 30, 2000.{{sfnb|Harvard University|2020}}

Vogel was married to Charlotte Ikels, professor of anthropology at Case Western Reserve University. He had three children with his first wife, Suzanne Hall Vogel: David, Steven (who became a political scientist), and Eve.{{sfnb|Harvard University|2020}}

Vogel died in Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on December 20, 2020, at the age of 90.{{Cite news|last=Qin|first=Amy|date=2020-12-23|title=Ezra F. Vogel, Eminent Scholar of China and Japan, Dies at 90|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/22/world/asia/ezra-f-vogel-dead.html|access-date=2020-12-23|issn=0362-4331}}{{cite news|date=December 21, 2020|script-title=ja:エズラ・ボーゲル氏死去 ジャパン・アズ・ナンバーワン|language=ja|publisher=朝日新闻|url=https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASNDP36TDNDPUHBI00F.html|access-date=December 21, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201221032247/https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASNDP36TDNDPUHBI00F.html|archive-date=December 21, 2020}}

Vogel published dozens of articles, reviews, conference papers and books on China, Japan, and American–East Asian relations, and organized scholarly and policy conferences. He headed the undergraduate East Asian Studies concentration (major) at Harvard.{{sfnb|Harvard University|2020}}

After editing a book of readings on the sociology of the family, Vogel published his first book, Japan's New Middle Class (1963; 2nd ed.1971), using ethnographic research he and his wife Suzanne carried out through interviews and observation in a Tokyo suburb between 1950 and 1960. Their goal was to understand the life of the "salary man" and his family, a new group that had emerged after the war.{{sfnb|Vogel|1963|p= ix, xi }} Vogel then turned from ethnography to China watching. He studied Chinese language, read newspapers and documents, and conducted interviews in Hong Kong. Canton Under Communism (1969) was a detailed description of regional government and politics in Guangdong.{{sfnb|Vogel|2020}} His 1979 book, Japan as Number One, described those areas where Japan had been successful and the United States less so. "Most Japanese understate their successes because they are innately modest," he wrote, and "more purposive Japanese, wanting to rally domestic forces or to reduce foreign pressures, have chosen to dramatize Japan's potential disasters". On the American side, he continued, "our confidence in the superiority of Western civilization and our desire to see ourselves as number one make it difficult to acknowledge that we have practical things to learn". The book's translation into Japanese was a best-seller, arousing debate among American scholars of Japan.{{sfnb|Johnston|2020}}

His 1991 text The Four Little Dragons analyzed the spread of industrialization in east Asia.{{Cite book |last=Hu |first=Richard |title=Reinventing the Chinese City |date=2023 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=978-0-231-21101-7 |location=New York}}{{Rp|page=97}} In Vogel's view, Confucianism played an important role in the industrialization of east Asian economies, given that cultural values of hard work, collectivism, discipline, family, conscientiousness, responsibility, and saving are also favorable qualities for organizing rapid industrialization and an industrializing work force.{{Rp|page=97}}

Vogel's later areas of research included industrialization, changes in family structure, political change, and security issues in South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and East Asia overall. In Beijing, he began to study Deng Xiaoping, following extensive interviews with Deng's economic adviser Yu Guangyuan. Vogel co-translated Yu's memoir on China's economic reform, and used it as a roadmap to his thinking on Deng.{{cite book|last1=Ezra|first1=Vogel|title=Introduction: Deng Xiaoping Shakes The World An Eyewitness Account of China's Party Work Conference and the Third Plenum|date=25 August 2008|publisher=EastBridge|isbn=9781891936548}} He continued publishing after his retirement: his last two books were Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (2011) and China and Japan: Facing History (2019).{{sfnb|Vogel|2020}} He contributed his royalties from the Chinese translation of this Deng political biography to his alma mater, Ohio Wesleyan, to promote international study and travel. The university estimated the contribution to be over $500,000.{{sfnb|Hatcher|2013}}

Vogel served as National Intelligence Officer for East Asia with the National Intelligence Council from 1993 to 1995.{{sfnb|Vogel|2020}} In 1999, when American forces bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Vogel was reported by The Guardian as saying that it was not credible that the embassy was bombed by mistake when the C.I.A. used old maps.{{Cite news | url=http://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/1999/nov/28/focus.news1 | title=Truth behind America's raid on Belgrade |journal= The Guardian| date=1999-11-27 | access-date=2014-01-21 | archive-date=2020-09-21 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200921043418/https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/1999/nov/28/focus.news1}} He later added "I find it hard to believe that anyone would consciously do such a thing and certainly not as a matter of policy. On the other hand I don't find it hard to believe that a massive mistake happened with a series of pitfalls and miscues adding up to disaster."{{Cite news|last=Neilan|first=Edward|date=2012-06-15|title=In Tokyo, Chinese embassy bombing debate still rages|publisher=World Tribune|url=http://news.chinatimes.com/focus/501011356/112012061500091.html|access-date=2012-06-26|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120618045626/http://news.chinatimes.com/focus/501011356/112012061500091.html|archive-date=2012-06-18}}

Starting in 2000, Vogel organized a series of conferences between Chinese, Japanese, and Western scholars to work together to examine World War II in East Asia; his intent was to promote reconciliation among the countries and support politicians who wanted to solve the lingering problems from that era.{{cite news |last1=Glosserman |first1=Brad |title=Fog of politics obscures war |url=https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2004/01/26/commentary/fog-of-politics-obscures-war/ |access-date=December 23, 2020 |work=The Japan Times |date=January 26, 2004}} One of the resulting conference volumes was China at War: Regions of China, 1937–1945 (2007), co-edited with Stephen R. Mackinnon and Diana Lary.{{cite journal |last1=Worthing |first1=Peter |title=Book Review: China at War: Regions of China, 1937—1945. Edited by Stephen R. MacKinnon, Diana Lary, and Ezra F. Vogel. Stanford University Press. 2007. xviii + 380 pp. US$65.00. ISBN 978 0 8047 5509 2 |journal=War in History |date=2008 |volume=15 |issue=4 |pages=497–499 |doi=10.1177/09683445080150040508 |jstor=26070750|s2cid=161522176 }}

In a statistical overview derived from writings by and about Ezra Vogel, OCLC/WorldCat returns 150+ works in 400+ publications in 12 languages and 14,900+ library holdings.[http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/identities/default.htm WorldCat Identities] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101230150412/http://www.oclc.org/research/activities/identities/default.htm |date=December 30, 2010 }}: [http://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n83-64729 Vogel, Ezra F.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200805225731/http://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n83-64729/ |date=August 5, 2020 }}

{{dynamic list}}

• A Modern Introduction to the Family (1960), with Norman W. Bell {{OCLC|902035798}}
• {{citation|first=Ezra |last=Vogel |author-mask=3|title= Japan's New Middle Class: the Salary Man and his Family in a Tokyo Suburb |year=1963|location= Berkeley|publisher= University of California Press}}. 2nd ed. 1971. On [https://archive.org/details/japansnewmiddlec00voge/page/n7/mode/2up Internet Archive].
• [https://archive.org/details/cantonundercommu00voge_0/ Canton under Communism; Programs and Politics in a Provincial Capital, 1949–1968] (1969) {{ISBN|9780674094758}}
• Modern Japanese Organization and Decision-making (1975) {{ISBN| 9780520028579}}
• Japan as Number One: Lessons for America (1979) {{ISBN|9781583484104}}
• Comeback, Case by Case : Building the Resurgence of American Business (1985) {{ISBN|9780671460792}}
• Ideology and National Competitiveness: an Analysis of Nine Countries (1987) {{ISBN|9780071032513}}
• One Step Ahead in China: Guangdong under Reform. (1989) {{ISBN|9780674639119}}
• Chinese Society on the Eve of Tiananmen: The Impact of Reform. (1990), with Deborah Davis {{ISBN|9780674125353}}
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=_NTUXSSpf68C The Four Little Dragons: The Spread of Industrialization in East Asia] (1993 {{ISBN|9780674315266}}) [http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674315266] The 1990 Edwin O. Reischauer Lectures
• Living with China : U.S./China Relations in the Twenty-First Century. (1997) {{ISBN|9780393317343}}
• Is Japan Still Number One? (2000) {{ISBN|9789679787283}}
• The Golden Age of the U.S.-China-Japan Triangle, 1972–1989 (2002), with Ming Yuan and Akihiko Tanaka {{ISBN|9780674009608}}
• China at War : Regions of China, 1937–1945 (2007), with Stephen R. Mackinnon, Diana Lary {{ISBN|978-0-8047-5509-2}}
• Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (2011) {{ISBN|978-0-674-05544-5}}
• The Park Chung Hee Era : The Transformation of South Korea (2011) {{ISBN|9780674058200}}
• China and Japan: Facing History (2019){{cite journal|author=Van Fleet, John Darwin|title=Review of China and Japan by Ezra Vogel|journal=Asian Review of Books|date=8 April 2020|url=https://asianreviewofbooks.com/content/china-and-japan-facing-history-by-ezra-vogel/}}{{cite journal|author=Kinmonth, Earl|title=Book Review {{!}} China and Japan: Facing History by Ezra Vogel|date=January 30, 2020|journal=Japan Forward|url=https://japan-forward.com/book-review-china-and-japan-facing-history-by-ezra-f-vogel/}} {{ISBN|9780674916579}}

Yu Guangyuan; Levine, Steven I. & Ezra, Vogel F. with an introduction by Ezra Vogel. Deng Xiaoping Shakes the World: An Eyewitness Account of China's Party Work Conference and the Third Plenum. Norwalk: EastBridge, 2004.

• {{cite journal |last =Vogel, Ezra F. |author-mask=3 |title =The Marital Relationship of Parents of Emotionally Disturbed Children: Polarization and Isolation |journal =Psychiatry |volume =23 |issue = 1 |pages =1–12 |date =1960 |doi = 10.1080/00332747.1960.11023198 |ref= none}}
• {{cite journal |last =Vogel, Ezra F. |author-mask=3|title =The Emotionally Disturbed Child as a Family Scapegoat |journal =Psychoanalysis and the Psychoanalytic Review |volume =47 |issue = 2 |pages =5–14 |date =1960 |pmid=5192296|ref= none}}
• {{cite journal |last =Bell, Norman, Albert Trieschman and Ezra Vogel |title =A Sociocultural Analysis of the Resistances of Working-Class Fathers Treated in a Child Psychiatric Clinic |journal =American Journal of Orthopsychiatry |volume =31 |issue = 2 |pages =388–405 |date =1961 |doi = 10.1111/j.1939-0025.1961.tb02136.x |ref= none}}
• {{cite journal |last =Vogel, Ezra F. |author-mask=3 |title =The Democratization of Family Relations in Japanese Urban Society |journal =Asian Survey |volume =1 |issue = 4 |pages =18–24 |date =1961 |doi = 10.2307/3023555 |jstor=3023555 |ref= none}}
• {{cite journal |last =Vogel, Ezra F. |author-mask=3 |title =The Go-between in a Developing Society: The Case of the Japanese Marriage Arranger |journal =Human Organization |volume =20 |issue = 3 |pages =112–120 |date =1961 |doi = 10.17730/humo.20.3.w785jx286r2536w4 |ref= none}}
• {{cite journal |last =Rothenberg, Albert and Ezra F. Vogel |title =Patient Cliques and the Therapeutic Community |journal =British Journal of Medical Psychology |volume =37 |issue = 2 |pages =143–152 |date =1964 |doi = 10.1111/j.2044-8341.1964.tb01982.x |pmid =14191882 |ref= none}}
• {{cite journal |last = Vogel |first = Ezra F. |author-mask=3|title =From Friendship to Comradeship: The Change in Personal Relations in Communist China |journal =The China Quarterly (London) |issue = 21 |pages =46–60 |date =1965 |volume = 21 |doi = 10.1017/S0305741000048463 |s2cid = 247326035 |ref= none}}
• {{cite journal |last = Vogel |first = Ezra F. |author-mask=3|title =From Revolutionary to Semi-Bureaucrat: The "Regularisation" of Cadres |journal =The China Quarterly (London) |volume =29 |issue = 29 |pages =36–60 |date =1967 |doi = 10.1017/S0305741000047901 |s2cid = 154354933 |ref= none}}
• {{cite journal |last = Vogel |first = Ezra F. |author-mask=3|title =Japanese-American Relations after the Cold War |journal =Daedalus (Cambridge, Mass.) |volume =121 |issue = 4 |pages =35–60 |date =1992 |ref= none}}
• {{cite journal |last =Bianco, Lucien, Jonathan Unger and Ezra Vogel |title =Universities Service Centre: The Chinese University of Hong Kong |journal =China Information |volume =8 |issue = 3 |pages =82 |date =1993 |doi = 10.1177/0920203X9300800311 |s2cid =147532530 |ref= none}}
• {{cite journal |last = Vogel |first = Ezra F. |author-mask=3|title =China as Number One a Harvard Professor Warns Japan That It Needs to Respond to China's Rise as a World Economic Power: Fortune Asia Edition |journal =Fortune International |volume =150 |issue = 11 |pages =71 |date =2004 |ref= none}}
• {{cite journal |last = Vogel |first = Ezra F. |author-mask=3|title =The Rise of China and the Changing Face of East Asia |journal =Asia-Pacific Review |volume =11 |issue = 1 |pages =46–57 |date =2004 |doi = 10.1080/13439000410001687742 |s2cid = 154713229 |ref= none}}
• {{cite journal |last = Vogel |first = Ezra F. |author-mask=3|title =Some Reflections on Policy and Academics |journal =Asia Policy |volume =1 |issue = 1 |pages =31–34 |date =2006 |doi = 10.1353/asp.2006.0013 |s2cid = 155059154 |ref= none}}
• {{cite journal |last = Vogel |first = Ezra F. |author-mask=3|title =Lucian Pye, 1921–2008 |journal =The China Quarterly (London) |volume =196 |issue = 196 |pages =912–918 |date =2008 |doi = 10.1017/S0305741008001288 |s2cid = 153435201 |ref= none}}
• {{cite journal |last = Vogel |first = Ezra F. |author-mask=3|title =Robert Scalapino (1919–2011) |journal =The China Quarterly (London) |volume =209 |issue = 209 |pages =217–221 |date =2012 |doi = 10.1017/S030574101100155X |ref= none|doi-access =free }}
• {{cite journal |last = Vogel |first = Ezra F. |author-mask=3|title =Suggestions for Improving Sino-Japanese Relations |journal =Asia-Pacific Review |volume =20 |issue = 2 |pages =160–162 |date =2013 |doi = 10.1080/13439006.2013.868396 |s2cid = 153919765 |ref= none}}
• {{cite journal |last = Vogel |first = Ezra F. |author-mask=3|title =Roderick Lemonde Macfarquhar, 1930–2019 |journal =The China Quarterly (London) |volume =238 |pages =291–308 |date =2019 |doi = 10.1017/S0305741019000705 |ref= none|doi-access =free }}

{{reflist}}

• {{citation|last=Suleski|first=Ronald Stanley|date=2005|title=The Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard University: a Fifty Year History, 1955-2005|place=Cambridge|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=9780976798002|oclc=64140358}}
• {{citation|author-last= Harvard University|title=Professor Ezra Vogel|url= https://scholar.harvard.edu/ezravogel/biocv|year=2020}}
• {{citation|title= Ohio Wesleyan Alumnus Endows Fund to Support International Learning, Travel|last=Hatcher|first=Cole |journal = News & Media|url=https://www.owu.edu/news-media/details/ohio-wesleyan-alumnus-endows-fund-to-support-international-learning-travel/ |publisher= Ohio Wesleyan University|date= 23 January 2013}}
• {{citation|title=Ezra Vogel, Harvard professor and author of 'Japan as Number One,' dies at 90|first=Eric|last=Johnston|journal=The Japan Times|date=21 December 2020|url=https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/12/21/national/ezra-vogel-obituary/}}
• {{citation|title=Ezra Vogel Saw the Good in Every Person and Every Nation|journal=The Japan Times|date= 21 December 2020|url=https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/12/21/national/ezra-f-vogel-obituary/ |first=Steven|last=Vogel|author-link= Steven K. Vogel}}

{{Archival records}}

• {{Charlie Rose view|15640|Ezra Vogel}}
• "[https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/person/ezra-vogel/?fbclid=IwAR3I0IJtzbRhOfetZAGYCG2e-LQqHyNvpFQKHGKtdKta96Z-kp5UnbSXk2M Ezra F. Vogel]," Harvard University Asia Center. Biographies, photos, extensive biographical material, bibliography, and other resources.
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKASa6UULns Remembering Ezra Vogel] Graham Allison, Thomas Gold, Melinda Liu, Michael Szonyi. [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1E5-wg_F4vFWWsP-CTcP1g National Committee on U.S. China Relations] (February 10, 2021)

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vogel, Ezra F.}}

Category:1930 births

Category:2020 deaths

Category:American Japanologists

Category:American sinologists

Category:Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni

Category:Harvard University faculty

Category:Historians from Ohio

Category:Ohio Wesleyan University alumni

Category:People from Delaware, Ohio

Category:Military personnel from Ohio

Category:Jewish American scientists

Category:Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies people