Rafe de Crespigny

Richard Rafe Champion de Crespigny (born 1936), also known by his Chinese name Zhang Leifu (Chinese: 張磊夫), is an Australian sinologist and historian. He is an honorary professor in the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University. He specialises in the history, geography and literature of the Han dynasty, particularly the translation and historiography of material concerning the Han dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period.

Family

The son of Richard Geoffrey Champion de Crespigny, (1907–1966), and Kathleen Cavenagh Champion de Crespigny (1908–2013), née Cudmore, Richard Rafe Champion de Crespigny was born in Adelaide in 1936. He married Christa Boltz in Turner, Australian Capital Territory on 19 May 1959.

Education

De Crespigny received his tertiary education at the University of Cambridge (B.A. Honours History 1957; M.A. History 1961) and the Australian National University (B.A. Honours Chinese 1962; M.A. Oriental Studies Honours 1964; PhD Far Eastern History 1968).

During his early years as a scholar and academic, de Crespigny benefited from the guidance of Geoffrey Elton and sinologists such as Hans Bielenstein, Otto van der Sprenkel, Fang Chao-ying, Liu Ts'un-yan and Göran Malmqvist, and he developed an interest in the late Han dynasty through the historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. His doctoral dissertation of 1968 on the development of the Chinese empire in the south and the origins of the Three Kingdoms state of Eastern Wu has provided the basis for much of his later work.

Publications

De Crespigny's publications include China: The Land and its People (Melbourne, 1971); China This Century (Melbourne 1975; 2nd Edition Hong Kong 1992), both discussions of modern China. His most significant works, however, are those concerned with the Later Han dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period.