Isabel Crook

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Isabel Crook
Crook in 1940
Crook in 1940
Born(1915-12-15)15 December 1915
Chengdu, Sichuan, China
Died20 August 2023(2023-08-20) (aged 107)
Beijing, China
OccupationProfessor, anthropologist
Language
  • English
  • Chinese
Nationality
  • Canadian
  • British
Alma mater
Notable works
  • Xinglong Chang: Field Notes of a Village Called Prosperity 1940–1942
  • Revolution in a Chinese Village: Ten Mile Inn
Notable awardsMedal of Friendship (2019)
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1942; died 2000)​
Children3
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese饒素梅
Simplified Chinese饶素梅

Isabel Crook (Chinese: 饶素梅; pinyin: Ráo Sùméi; 15 December 1915 – 20 August 2023) was a Canadian-British anthropologist, political prisoner, and professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University. Crook conducted anthropological studies in China and played an instrumental role in foreign language education in China.

Early life[edit]

Isabel Brown was born on 15 December 1915, in Chengdu, Sichuan, to Canadian missionaries Homer and Muriel Brown.[1][2] Homer was the dean of the Education Faculty at West China Union University.[2] Muriel set up Montessori Schools in China and served on the board of the YWCA.[3] Isabel's sisters, Muriel and Julia, were also born in Chengdu and all three attended the city's Canadian School.[2]

As a child, Isabel Brown became interested in anthropology and the many ethnic minorities in China.[4] In 1939, at the age of 23, she graduated from Victoria College at the University of Toronto.[2]

Later life, revolution and career[edit]

After graduating, Brown returned to China and set out for western Sichuan with a Chinese colleague to study the Yi people (known then as Lolos) who followed a shamanic religion and lived in a caste-based society heavily reliant on slavery.[2][4] The next year, the Chinese National Christian Council hired Brown to survey impoverished rural families in a village outside of Chongqing, which later became the basis for her publication Prosperity's Predicament.[2]

In the early 1940s, Isabel met David Crook, a British Stalinist who had spied for the NKVD in both Spain and Shanghai, and married him in 1942.[1] In 1947, they went to Ten Mile Inn, Shidong Township, Hebei Province, to observe and study the Chinese Land Reform.[5] Six months later, they accepted an invitation from CPC leaders to teach at a new foreign affairs school, the forerunner of today's Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU).[1]

As a teacher at BFSU, Crook laid the foundation for foreign language education in China.[6] During the Cultural Revolution, David was imprisoned from 1967 to 1973 in Qincheng prison, while she was confined to the BFSU campus.[7] Isabel said she understood and forgave her captors.[1]

Crook retired from teaching in 1981 and resumed her research studies as an anthropologist. Her study of the village in Sichuan, which she, Xiji Yu [zh] and others had begun in the 1940s, was continued in the 90s and then eventually published as Prosperity's Predicament: Identity, Reform, and Resistance in Rural Wartime China in 2013.[8][9]

In June 2019, she became an honorary citizen of Bishan District, Chongqing.[10]

The Crooks had three sons.[11][2] She died in Beijing on 20 August 2023, at age 107.[2]

Works[edit]

  • Xinglong Chang: Field Notes of a Village Called Prosperity 1940–1942 (兴隆场：抗战时期四川农民生活调查（1940–1942）) ISBN 978-7-101-08034-6
  • Crook, Isabel and David. 1959. Revolution in a Chinese Village: Ten Mile Inn (十里店：中国一个村庄的革命). London, Boston and Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul ISBN 978-1-134-68555-4
  • Crook, Isabel and David. 1966. The First Years of Yangyi Commune. London, Boston and Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul. ISBN 0-7100-3463-6
  • Crook, Isabel and David. 1979. Ten Mile Inn: Mass Movement in a Chinese Village. New York: Pantheon Books. ISBN 0-394-41178-1
  • Gilmartin, Christina K; Crook, Isabel; Yu, Xiji (2013). Prosperity's Predicament: Identity, Reform and Resistance in Wartime China. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-4422-5277-6

Awards[edit]

Crook was awarded a Doctor of Letters by Victoria University, Toronto in 2018.[12]

On 30 September 2019, Crook was awarded the Medal of Friendship by Chinese president Xi Jinping.[13]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d WSJ China Real Time blog 2013.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Gittings 2023.
  3. ^ Isabel Crook 2018a.
  4. ^ a b Isabel Crook 2018b.
  5. ^ China Daily 2017.
  6. ^ Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2022.
  7. ^ David Crook 1990.
  8. ^ Crook, Yu & Hershatter 2013.
  9. ^ Griffiths 2023.
  10. ^ Zeng Qinglong 2019.
  11. ^ SACU 2021.
  12. ^ Victoria University 2023.
  13. ^ China Plus 2019.

Sources[edit]

External links[edit]

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