Join us to honor the memory of Rhoads Murphey, professor emeritus of History, and his wife, Eleanor Murphey. Rhoads Murphey played an important role in the establishment of Asian Studies and Eleanor provided a vital sense of community for Asian Studies at the University of Michigan.
Rhoads Murphey, and his wife Eleanor, died in early January at Glacier Hills. Eleanor died of a stroke, and Rhoads of congestive heart failure. They had been married 61 years. Rhoads was B.A. cum laude, Harvard 1941, and served during the war with the Friends Ambulance Unit in China. He got his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1950 and taught at the University of Washington and, from 1964, at Michigan. Among his dozen books and many articles on China, India and Asia generally is a pioneering work on urbanism in China, Shanghai: Key to Modern China (1953), and influential interpretations of the foreign presence, The Treaty Ports and China's Modernization: What Went Wrong? (1970) and The Outsiders: The Western Experience in India and China (1977). He continued publishing in retirement, including widely used textbooks, A History of Asia, now in its sixth edition, and East Asia: A New History, now in its fifth edition. At Michigan he has been Director of the Center for Chinese Studies and the Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies. He has been Editor of the Journal of Asian Studies, and President of the Association for Asian Studies.
Rhoads and Eleanor were welcoming, devoted friends. They will be greatly missed.
