Harold Isaacs, Noted Author on China, Dies

Harold R. Isaacs, an influential author on the Chinese Revolution and professor of political science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has died at Massachusetts General Hospital. He was 75.

Isaacs was the author of nine books, mainly on China, Asia and Africa. He died Wednesday of complications resulting from heart surgery.

His first book on China, “The Tragedy of a Chinese Revolution,” was published in 1938 and dealt with the history of the 1925-27 period. Isaacs had gone to China in 1930, and two years later, founded an English-language weekly in Shanghai, “The China Forum.” Critical of Chiang Kai-shek and his government, the newspaper was forced to shut down.

Isaacs returned to China in World War II as a war correspondent for Newsweek magazine. In 1945 he and several other reporters were blacklisted by the Chinese Nationalist Government.

After returning to the United States, Isaacs wrote “No Peace for Asia” and “Two-Thirds of the World.” One of his best-received works was “Scratches on Our Minds: American Images of China and India.”

Isaacs was appointed to the MIT faculty as a research associate in 1953. In 1965 he was named professor of political science and became professor-emeritus in 1976.

A memorial service will be held at MIT in the fall.