Harold Isaacs

Harold Isaacs
Isaacs (top, middle) visiting the home of Soong Ching-ling
Born
Harold Robert Isaacs

1910
Died1986 (aged 75)
EducationColumbia University (BA)
OccupationsJournalist, political scientist
SpouseViola Robinson Isaacs
Writing career
Pen nameLo Sen, Yi Luosheng, Harold Roberts
Notable worksThe Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution
Scratches on Our Minds

Harold Robert Isaacs (September 13, 1910 – July 9, 1986) was an American journalist and political scientist.

Career

Isaacs graduated from Columbia University in 1929, then briefly worked as a reporter for the New York Times. He went to China in 1930 with no strong political views, but became involved with left-wing politics in Shanghai, especially through a friendship with Frank Glass, a Trotskyist from South Africa, and with Agnes Smedley, an American journalist with Communist sympathies.

He wrote The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution (1938), about the early 1925-27 phases of the Chinese Communist Revolution, which featured a preface by Leon Trotsky. The book includes dramatic descriptions of the Shanghai Massacre of 1927, in which nationalist forces killed thousands of known or suspected communists. Isaacs condemned the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party for following the instructions of Joseph Stalin to ally with the Nationalist Party rather than arming the workers and pursuing a genuinely revolutionary program.

He covered World War II in Southeast Asia and China for Newsweek Magazine. In 1953 he joined the department of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In the following years he published Scratches on our Minds: American Images of China and India, American Jews in Israel, and The New World of Negro Americans, among others. Scratches on our Minds was highly influential. By reviewing the popular and scholarly literature on Asia that appeared in the United States, and by interviewing many American experts, Isaacs identified four stages of American attitudes toward China: "benevolence", dominant 1905 to 1937; "admiration" (1937–1944); "disenchantment" (1944–1949); and "hostility" (after 1949).

In 1950, Isaacs was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Personal life

Isaacs and his wife had two children, journalist Arnold R. Isaacs, and Deborah Shipler, who was married to journalist David K. Shipler.

In 1980, Isaacs returned to China with his wife, Viola, and wrote an account of the visit, Re-Encounters in China.

Selected articles and works

References

  1. ↑ Contemporary Authors, Vol. 119 (Gale Research International, 1986), p. 157.
  2. ↑ Columbia College (Columbia University). Office of Alumni Affairs and Development; Columbia College (Columbia University) (1987). Columbia College today. Columbia University Libraries. New York, N.Y. : Columbia College, Office of Alumni Affairs and Development.
  3. ↑ Rand (1995), p. 81.
  4. ↑ Rand (1995), p. 130-131.
  5. ↑ Paul S. Ropp, ed. (1990). Heritage of China: Contemporary Perspectives on Chinese Civilization. University of California Press. p. 10. ISBN 978-0-520-06440-9.
  6. 1 2 Obituary, New York Times, July 10, 1986

Sources and further reading