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I did not study with Bob Scalapino while a graduate student at Berkeley, but had the pleasure of getting to know him as my career path wandered into Northeast Asian security issues. There are a number of good overviews emerging, including one from PacNet which I simply reproduce below. But in the spirit of our blog, I want to remind readers of the work he did on North Korea.
Communism in Korea was a ten-year, 1,500 page research effort with Chong-Sik Lee, published in two volumes by the University of California Press in 1972; v. 1 was called The Movement; v2. The Society. The book undoubtedly bore the stamp of the Cold War; Scalapino and Lee’s disdain for the Korean left—of all stripes; not only for the Communists—was quite palpable. Although he mellowed over time, Scalapino had his run-ins with other faculty and students over Vietnam, South Korea and many other issues when I was a graduate student, He comes up in a long 1996 reflection by Bruce Cumings on how the South Korean government and intelligence service sought to influence policy debate in the US. Indeed, v. 1 on The Movement might usefully be read in point-counterpoint fashion with Cumings two-volume The Origins of the Korean War.
But what struck me in re-reading the book earlier this year was the way attention to detail ended up trumping ideology. Induction has become a dirty word in the social sciences, but Scalapino and Lee were incredibly perspicacious in mining the data sources on which they drew, while continually looking for appropriate comparisons with other communist systems. The book walks through the consolidation of power and sees patterns later confirmed by Andrei Lankov in his two outstanding volumes on the early-postwar period (From Stalin to Kim Il Sung: The Formation of North Korea, 1945-1960 (2003) and Crisis in North Korea: The Failure of De-Stalinization, 1956 (2004). The study takes institutions seriously, studying the party in particular, and looks closely at the military well-before “military-first politics.”Lee and Scalapino anticipate later political economy approaches—including ours—by close examination of the rural sector and the planned economy. Throughout, there are efforts to extract as much out of existing data as they can while also providing original documents for others to use. In short, old-school scholarship of the first order; if you are serious about North Korea, you simply have to read it.
Bob’s biggest example to the rest of us, however, was the way he loved what he did. Even in the most dull meeting, he would extract the crumbs and maintain good humor, looking more or less exactly like the worldly-wise Yoda. RIP, Bob; a life well-lived.
PacNote 16-2011 Friday, November 4, 2011
Subject: Remembering Bob Scalapino
Dear Pacific Forum Patrons and Friends,
It is with great sadness that we note the passing of a charter member of the Pacific Forum's Board of Governors, Dr. Robert A. Scalapino, the Robson Research Professor of Government emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. Bob passed away on Monday, Nov. 1, in Oakland, of complications from a respiratory infection. He was 92.
If you have had even a passing familiarity with East Asia security issues anytime in the past 60 years, you have been mentored, at least indirectly and more likely directly, by Bob. He taught us all and we are all richer for the experience. He will be sorely missed.
Bob Scalapino was a leading expert in Japan studies, and advised three American presidents and numerous governmental groups on foreign policy relating to Asia. He edited Asian Survey, the seminal journal of contemporary East Asian politics, from 1962 to 1996. In 1978, he founded the Institute of East Asian Studies (IEAS), one of UC Berkeley’s largest and best endowed research units, and served as its director until retiring in 1990.
Bob Scalapino was born Oct. 19, 1919, in Leavenworth, Kansas, and his family moved in 1929 to Santa Barbara. Midway through college, he decided to specialize in politics and international relations between the United States and Europe. After Pearl Harbor, he went into the military as a Japanese language officer at the US Navy Language School in Boulder, Colo., beginning his immersion in East Asia.
Bob was an indefatigable world traveler, making 62 trips to the People’s Republic of China alone. Name a place and Bob has been there, probably in the past two years; age was always a state of mind to Bob and not a hindrance to his travels. He wrote well over 500 articles and some 40 books. In his memoirs, From Leavenworth to Lhasa – Living in a Revolutionary Era (2008), he said he started his college teaching career in 1940 to pay for graduate school. At that time, he met Dee Jessen, and the two wed in 1941, remaining married until her death in 2005. They raised three daughters: the late poet Leslie Scalapino; Diane Jablon of Los Angeles; and Lynne Scalapino of Berkeley, Calif. He is also survived by five grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
A December memorial is being planned, and details will be announced later. Donations in Bob’s memory can be made to the “Robert A. Scalapino Fund” at IEAS, benefiting undergraduate students at UC Berkeley with an interest in East Asian studies. Contact Rochelle Halperin at [email protected] for details.
Rest in peace Bob. You have been a teacher and a role model to us all.
Thank you!
