Endymion Wilkinson awarded the 2014 Stanislas Julien Prize for “Chinese History: A New Manual”

Endymion Wilkinson, a British scholar-diplomat and currently an Associate in Research at the Fairbank Center, Harvard University, has been awarded the 2014 Stanislas Julien Prize for his Chinese History: A New Manual (Harvard-Yenching Monograph Series 84, Harvard Asia Center, 2013).

The Stanislas Julien Prize recognizes outstanding Western-language scholarship on Asian culture. It has been awarded annually since 1875 by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, one of France’s most distinguished academies (founded, 1663). The prize is named after the renowned French Sinologist, Stanislas Julien (1797-1873).

This is the fifth time in 139 years that a Harvard scholar or associate has received the prize: the four previous recipients were William Hung (1937), Francis Cleaves (1953), Edwin O. Reischauer (1957), and James Robson (2010). The 2014 award is the first time that an author has received the prize for a title in the Harvard-Yenching Monographs since the series began in 1935.

Wilkinson’s manuals and guides to Chinese history have been distributed without a break by the Harvard Press for over 40 years. The New Manual was first published in a preliminary edition in 1973 and revised and reprinted for the next quarter century. The first full edition was published in 1998 followed by a second revised and enlarged edition in 2000. At 1.5 million words the prize-winning third edition (2013) dwarfs the previous ones. Over the years the manual has become a standard reference in the field of Chinese history and will shortly be published in Chinese by Peking University Press.