Harold Isaacs

Harold Robert Isaacs (1910–1986) was an American journalist and political scientist.

Harold Isaacs
Harold Isaacs (Top, Middle) visiting the home of Soong Ching-ling
Born	Harold Robert Isaacs 1910
Died	1986
Pen name	Lo Sen, Yi Luosheng, Harold Roberts.
Occupation	Journalist and Political Scientist
Nationality	United States
Notable works	The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution Scratches on Our Minds
Spouse	Viola Robinson Isaacs

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.[1]

He wrote The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution, about the Chinese Revolution of 1925-27, first published in 1938 with a preface by Leon Trotsky. The book includes dramatic descriptions of the Shanghai Massacre of 1927, which wiped out Communists and those thought to be communist. 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.[2]

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).[3]

In 1980, he returned to China with his wife, Viola, and wrote an account of the visit, Re-Encounters in China.[4]

In 1950, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship.

He and his wife had two children, the journalist Arnold R. Isaacs and Deborah Shipler.[4]

Selected articles and works

• Five years of Kuomintang reaction (editor) (1932)
• ——— (1938). The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution. Introduction by Leon Trotsky. London: Secker & Warburg; Reprinted, with a Preface by Arnold Isaacs, Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2009.; Revised Edition, Stanford University Press, 1951; Second Revised Edition, Stanford University Press, 1961.
• New cycle in Asia: selected documents in major international development in the Far East, 1943-1947 (editor) (1947)
• Two-thirds of the world: problems of a new approach to the peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America (1950)
• Africa : new crisis in the making (1952)
• Scratches on our minds: American images of China and India (John Day, 1958); reprinted as Images of Asia : American views of China and India (M.E. Sharpe, 1972)
• Emergent Americans; a report on "Crossroads Africa."(1961)
• The new world of Negro Americans (1964)
• India's ex-Untouchables (1965)
• American Jews in Israel (1967)
• No peace for Asia (1947)
• Straw sandals; Chinese short stories, 1918-1933 (editor)(1974)
• Idols of the tribe : group identity and political change (1975)
• Power and identity : tribalism in world politics (1979)
• '——— (1985). Re-Encounters in China: Notes of a Journey in a Time Capsule. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 1315495643.

Notes

1. Rand (1995), p. 81.
2. Rand (1995), p. 130-131.
3. Paul S. Ropp, ed. (1990). Heritage of China: Contemporary Perspectives on Chinese Civilization. University of California Press. p. 10.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
4. Obituary, New York Times, July 10, 1986

References and further reading

• Rand, Peter (1995). "Prophet in a Foreign Land". China Hands: The Adventures and Ordeals of the American Journalists Who Joined Forces with the Great Chinese Revolution. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 81–131.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

• Rotter, Andrew Jon (1996). "In Retrospect: Harold R. Isaacs's Scratches on Our Minds". Reviews in American History. 24 (1): 177–188.
• Kosuth, Dennis (2010). "The Chinese revolution of 1925–27: Review of The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution". International Socialist Review (74).
• Clarke, George (January–February 1952). "The Tragedy of Harold Isaacs: Vandal at Work". Fourth International. 13 (1): 26–31.CS1 maint: date format (link)

External links

• Articles 1933-1941 in the Marxists Internet Archive
• Harold Isaacs Internet Archive Encyclopedia of Trotskeyism Online Writings on China, 1933-1941.