Henri Paul Gaston Maspero (15 December 1883 – 17 March 1945) was a French sinologist and professor who

contributed to a variety of topics

relating to East Asia. Maspero is best known for his pioneering studies of Daoism. He was imprisoned by the Nazis during World War II and died in
the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Contents
[hide]

 1Life and career

 2See also
 3References
 4External links

Life and career[edit]

Henri Maspero was born on 15 December 1883 in Paris, France. His father, Gaston Maspero, was a famous French Egyptologist who was
of Italianancestry. Maspero was also Jewish.[1] After studies in history and literature, in 1905 he joined his father in Egypt, and later published the
study Les Finances de l'Egypte sous les Lagides. After returning to Paris in 1907, he studied the Chinese language under Édouard Chavannes and law
at Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales. In 1908, he went to Hanoi, studying at the École française d'Extrême-Orient.

In 1918 he succeeded Édouard Chavannes as the Chair of Chinese at the Collège de France. He published his monumental La Chine Antique in 1927.
During the following years he replaced Marcel Granet for the chair of Chinese civilisation at the Sorbonne, directed the department of Chinese religions
at the École pratique des hautes études, and was selected to be a member of the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres.

On 26 July 1944, Maspero and his wife, who were still living in Nazi-occupied Paris, were arrested because of their son's involvement with the French
Resistance.[2] Maspero was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where he endured its brutal conditions for over six months before dying on 17
March 1945, aged 61, only three weeks before the camp's liberation by the U.S. Third Army.

See also[edit]
 Georges Maspero (1872–1942), French sinologist, son of Gaston, brother of Henri and Jean
 Jean Maspero (1885–1915), French papyrologist, brother of Henri and Georges
 François Maspero (1932–2015), French author and journalist, son of Henri

References[edit]
1. Jump up^ Katz (2014), p. xv.
2. Jump up^ Yetts (1946), p. 95.

Works cited

 Auboyer, Jeannine (1947). "Henri Maspero (1883–1945)". Artibus Asiae (in French). 10 (1): 61–64. JSTOR 3248491.
 Demiéville, Paul (1947). "Henri Maspero et l'avenir des études chinoises" [Henri Maspero and the Future of Chinese Studies]. T'oung Pao (in
French). 38 (1): 16–42. doi:10.1163/156853297x00473. JSTOR 4527248.
 Honey, David B. (2001). Incense at the Altar: Pioneering Sinologists and the Development of Classical Chinese Philology. American Oriental
Series 86. New Haven, Connecticut: American Oriental Society. ISBN 0-940490-16-1.
 Katz, Paul R. (2014). Religion in China and Its Modern Fate. Waltham: Brandeis University Press.
 Yetts, W. Perceval (1946). "Obituary Notices – Henri Maspéro". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (1):
95. JSTOR 25222077.

External links[edit]
 Some of his works are available free online courtesy of the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi
 Henri Maspero, by E. Bruce Brooks: biography with photographs