"If he objected to anything, it was the relegation of ideas to the sideline of political analysis," said Roderick L. MacFarquhar, who now holds the Williams professorship.
Schwartz was best known among his colleagues for the breadth of his knowledge, from ancient to modern Chinese history and from Western to Chinese thinkers.
"He was equally comfortable with Plato, Aristotle, de Tocqueville, Marx and Weber as with Chinese thinkers," said Professor of History Andrew D. Gordon '74, director of the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies.
Colleagues said this constant comparing of Chinese ideas to Western ones was one of Schwartz's lasting contributions to East Asian scholarship. He was what Gordon called an "obsessive relativizer."
Gordon first met Schwartz in 1970, when Schwartz taught what is now Historical Studies A-13, "Tradition and Transformation in East Asian Civilization: China."
"His lectures were infuriating. He would go off in one direction and then say, 'on the other hand,' and weave back," he said.
Schwartz was also involved with the Fairbank Center for East Asian studies from its inception in 1955, said Perry, the Center's current director.
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