From: Phil deHaan (dehp@calvin.edu)
Date: Thu Oct 10 2002 - 10:44:50 EDT
October 10, 2002 == FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Calvin College professor of history emeritus Ed VanKley has passed away at the
age of 72 from complications related to pneumonia. His death occurred on
Wednesday, October 9 at Spectrum Health in Grand Rapids after a short hospital
stay.
The 1958 Calvin graduate and South Holland, Ill., native was perhaps best-known
for his expertise on the relationship in the 17th century between Asia and
Europe. He and Donald Lach, his former professor at the University of Chicago,
collaborated on a four-book volume on the connections between the two
continents. They worked for 16 years on Volume III (titled A Century of
Advance) of Asia in the Making of Europe. And at the time of his death VanKley
was working on Volume IV.
Volume III alone consisted of four separate books totaling 1,917 pages with 433
plates, 158 pages of bibliography and a 112-page index. Research on the book
took VanKley around the globe as he traveled to China, the Philippines, Hong
Kong and Europe as well as to libraries at the University of Michigan, Harvard
and the University of Chicago among others. He mastered seven languages (Dutch,
French, German, Italian, Portugese, Latin and Spanish) in order to do the
research.
Just editing the book took four years, an experience that left the
long-distance runner (he completed the Old Kent River bank Run in Grand Rapids
several times) weary. "That (editing) is not pleasant work," he said in January
1994, soon after the book's release. He estimated at the time that he had read
the 2,000-page book "at least three times and probably more by the time we were
done reading each other's chapters, editing and doing everything else."
Reviews of the book made the work worthwhile.
The book was praised by The New York Review of Books as "the most comprehensive
work on the history of Western perceptions of pre-modern Asia ever written."
Meanwhile the Washington Post's Book World said "one can hardly deny the
impressiveness of the contributions of Lach and VanKley who have shown in
magisterial detail that many of the later attitudes of European superiority
toward Asia simply were not present in the 17th century." The New York Review
of Books review also called VanKley a "skillful bibliographer and historian of
the seventeenth century in Asia." Reviewer Jonathon Spence added that "it is a
book full of amazements" and concluded by comparing the effort of Lach and
VanKley to the achievement of Joseph Needham, an analogy akin to comparing the
work of a mathematician to Albert Einstein.
In Volume III Lach and VanKley argued that in the 17th century Europeans did
not embrace theories of white racial superiority in their dealings with Asia,
rather they looked somewhat longingly at a country that was big and rich. The
authors also examined the ways in which different European communities perceived
Asia. In regards to the themes of racial tolerance and intolerance present in
Volume III, The Washington Post's Book World concluded its review by asserting
that the work of Lach and VanKley reminds us that the "past is not always less
advanced than the present."
Colleagues of VanKley remember him not just a world-class historian and
scholar, but also a dedicated Calvin faculty member.
Professor of history Bert de Vries, a colleague and a friend, says: "Ed was an
extremely bright person who loved being a scholar and being in a highly
intellectual atmosphere at Calvin. He was a really critical thinker and I mean
that in the positive sense of the word. He could cut to the core of an issue.
But he also really enjoyed serving the institution. He never said no to an
invitation to serve. He was the epitome of participation in the faculty
governance process that we hold so dear at Calvin."
Those words were echoed by professor of history emeritus Herb Brinks, a former
Calvin colleague and also a long-time fellow member of Calvin Christian Reformed
Church in Grand Rapids. "He was very proud of Calvin College," says Brinks,
"and I think in a small way he was pleased to be part of a generation of
scholars, people like (Nicholas) Wolterstorff and (Alvin) Plantinga, that put
Calvin on the map."
VanKley's own words bear out Brinks' summation.
In a 1995 story in The Advance, a West Michigan weekly, VanKley said coming
back to Calvin after completing his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago was a
natural move. "I had a big debt to this college because it did wonderful things
for me as an undergraduate," he said. "This was a place where I could be a
scholar and contribute to shaping the lives of young people."
In a 1995 retirement tribute in Spark, the Calvin College alumni magazine,
VanKley spoke of what had kept him at Calvin for 33 years. "I stayed on," he
said at the time, "because I thought Calvin might have a better chance than
others at being the sort of institution that encourages the connection between
Christianity and scholarship."
Thanks in part to his contributions it is.
-end-
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