Qian Mu

Also known as Bin Si

Qian Mu, courtesy name Binsi, came from Wuxi in Jiangsu; poverty ended his schooling in 1912, and he spent more than ten years teaching in local primary and middle schools while teaching himself history. In 1930 his chronology of Liu Xiang and Liu Xin, published in the Yenching Journal of Chinese Studies, led Gu Jiegang to recommend him to Yenching University, and he went on to teach at Peking University and elsewhere. While lecturing at the wartime Southwest Associated University he published his Outline of National History (Guoshi dagang) in 1940. In 1949 he founded New Asia College in Hong Kong with Tang Junyi and others and served as its head; the college became part of the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1963. In 1967 he moved to the Sushu Lou in Waishuangxi, Taipei, and the next year he was elected to Academia Sinica. He died in Taipei in August 1990, and his ashes were buried on Xishan island in Lake Tai.