Levenson, Joseph Richmond

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LEVENSON, JOSEPH RICHMOND

LEVENSON, JOSEPH RICHMOND (1920–1969), U.S. specialist in Chinese history. Born in Boston, he served as a Japanese-language officer in the U.S. Navy during World War ii. In 1953 Levenson was appointed professor of history at the University of California (Berkeley). Levenson's research was primarily in the field of Chinese intellectual history. His foremost contribution to scholarship was the trilogy Confucian China and Its Modern Fate, consisting of The Problem of Intellectual Continuity (1958); The Monarchical Decay (1964); and The Problem of Historical Significance (1965). Levenson served as a director of Congregation Beth Israel in Berkeley.