Kracke, E. A. (Edward A.)

Edward A. Kracke Jr. was a professor of East Asian studies at the University of Chicago, and an expert on early Chinese political institutions during the Sung dynasty (906-1279 A. D.). After joining the Department of Oriental Languages and Literatures at the University of Chicago, he was instrumental in developing its program in Far Eastern studies; when he retired in 1973, they had been brought together as the Department of Far Eastern Languages and Civilizations.

Edward A. Kracke Jr. was born in New York City on 22 January, 1908. He received his A. B. cum laude in Fine Arts in 1932 and a Master's degree in History in 1935, both from Harvard University. That same year, he married Joan Hocking, the daughter of the Harvard idealist philosopher William E. Hocking. They had two children together: Waud Hocking and Ernesta Henrietta. Also in 1935, Kracke travelled to Paris to study early Chinese and Central Asian History with Étienne Balazs, a leading sinologist, at l'École nationale des langues orientales vivantes, now known as the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales. Afterward, he went to Peiping (Beijing) to study Chinese language and history, receiving assistance and advice from the reputed Chinese historian William Hung. He then returned to Harvard, where he worked with the prominent scholars Edwin O. Reischauer, John K. Fairbank and Serge Elisséeff and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Japanese language.

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