Ezra Vogel: Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China

The Asia Society in Houston presents Ezra Vogel.

Deng Xiaoping brought radical change to China, pulling the country from the wreckage of Mao’s Cultural Revolution and launching it on a path of astonishing economic growth.

But Deng was a complex figure. Though a modernizer eager to expand trade with the West, he acted on his authoritarian roots in ordering a violent crackdown on political dissent at Tiananmen Square.

Join Ezra Vogel, Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences Emeritus at Harvard University and author of the landmark biography Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China, as he discusses Deng’s rise to power and mixed legacy.

Ezra F. Vogel is a student of both modern Japan and China. He received his B.A. at Ohio Wesleyan University in 1950 and his Ph.D. in sociology at Harvard in 1958. He then spent two years in Japan conducting research. In 1960-61, he was assistant professor at Yale University and from 1961-62 through 1963-64 a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard, studying Chinese language and history. He remained at Harvard, becoming lecturer in 1964 and professor in 1967. Professor Vogel succeeded John Fairbank as second Director (1972-1977) of Harvard's East Asian Research Center and second Chairman of the Council for East Asian Studies (1977-1980). He was Director of the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations at the Center for International Affairs (1980-1987) and, since 1987, Honorary Director. He was director of the Undergraduate Concentration in East Asian Studies from its inception in 1972 until 1989. In 1993 he took a two-year leave of absence, serving as National Intelligence Officer for East Asia at the National Intelligence Council. He returned to Harvard in September 1995 to direct the Fairbank Center until 1999 and was head of the Asia Center from 1997 to 1999. He taught courses on communist Chinese society, Japanese society, and industrial East Asia. The Japanese edition of Professor Vogel's book Japan as Number One: Lessons for America (1979) remains the all-time best-seller in Japan of non-fiction by a Western author. He officially retired in 2000 but remains active in research and East Asia related activities.