Lin Man-houng () is an economic historian and the first female president of the Academia Historica ( 國史館). She is also one of few female historians to boldly argue in public about Taiwan's sovereignty and international status.

Biography

Born in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

in 1951 to the Wufeng Lin family, she graduated from National Taiwan University and later received her Ph.D. in history and East Asian languages from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1989. Lin has been a senior research fellow at the

Institute of Modern History An institute is an organisational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institute, research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countr ...

Academia Sinica Academia Sinica (AS, la, 1=Academia Sinica, 3=Chinese Academy; ), headquartered in Nangang, Taipei, is the national academy of Taiwan. Founded in Nanking, the academy supports research activities in a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from ...

since 1990 and professor at the Department of History, National Taiwan Normal University since 1991. From 20 May 2008 to 15 December 2010, she served as the president of the

Academia Historica An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, f ...

, the central academy of history of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Her appointment marked the first time a woman had headed the institute since its founding in 1947. She resigned because of the institute's hosting of a controversial online poll, which listed

Mao Zedong Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...

and

Deng Xiaoping Deng Xiaoping (22 August 1904 – 19 February 1997) was a Chinese revolutionary leader, military commander and statesman who served as the paramount leader of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from December 1978 to November 1989. After CC ...

among the candidates for the Top 100 most influential figures in the Republic of China's hundred-year history. Lin’s research primarily focuses on

treaty ports Treaty ports (; ja, 条約港) were the port cities in China and Japan that were opened to foreign trade mainly by the unequal treaties forced upon them by Western powers, as well as cities in Korea opened up similarly by the Japanese Empire. ...

and

modern China The earliest known written records of the history of China date from as early as 1250 BC, from the Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 BC), during the reign of king Wu Ding. Ancient historical texts such as the ''Book of Documents'' (early chapter ...

opium Opium (or poppy tears, scientific name: ''Lachryma papaveris'') is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which i ...

in late

Qing The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speaki ...

China, currency crisis in early nineteenth-century China, and various empires and the role of Taiwanese merchants in

East Asian East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea a ...

overseas economic networks. She has published five books and some 70 papers in Chinese, English, Japanese and Korean. Her book ''China Upside Down'' links China’s topsy-turvy change from the center of the

East Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea and ...

n order to its modern tragedy with the Latin American Independence Movement.

References

Taiwanese women historians 1951 births Living people Harvard University alumni People from Changhua County National Taipei University alumni Lin family of Wufeng Historians of Taiwan {{Taiwan-historian-stub