Liang Qichao (Liang Ch'i-ch'ao) 1873-1929
A native of Xinhui, Guangdong province, he obtained his juren degree in 1889, and in 1890 became a student of Kang Youwei. He worked closely with Kang throughout the 1895-1898 reform movement, editing the important journals, and serving as Academic Director at the movement's flagship Shiwu Xuetang (Academy of Current Events). After the conservative coup of 1898 which ended the reforms, he started the fourteen years of his exile in Japan. Liang continued to promote constitutional monarchy in China. He edited the journals of the Society to Protect the Emperor, Qingyi bao (Topics of the Day) and Xinmin congbao (New People), and toured to Hawaii, Hong Kong, Singapore, Ceylon, Australia and North America. He returned to China in 1912, after the collapse of the dynasty, and served in the cabinet of Yuan Shikai. He retired from politics in 1917 to pursue academic studies and writings. Liang was one of the most prolific man of letters of the late Qing and early Republican era. His influence extends from Buddhist studies to the development of modern fiction. His complete works is called the Yinbishi quanji.
Works available in English:
History of Chinese Political Thought During the Early Tsin Period (L.T. Chen).
London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Ltd., 1930; Taipei: Ch'eng-wen
Pub. Co., 1968; New York: AMS Press, 1969; Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press, 1997.
Intellectual Trends in the Ching Period (Immanuel C.Y. Hsu). Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1959.
Two Self-portraits: Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and Hu Shih (Li Yuning and William A.
Wycoff). New York: Outer Sky Press, 1992.
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