John Curtis Perry

In 2018 colleagues and students of Perry came together to publish a book in his honor, Eurasia’s Maritime Rise and Global Security: From the Indian Ocean to Pacific Asia and the Arctic. In it, Admiral (ret.) and Fletcher School Dean James G. Stavridis remarked that the book was created "in celebration" of Perry, with the book's editor Geoffrey F. Gresh further noting that the volume "emerged from a workshop on the future of the world's oceans hosted at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, in the Spring of 2015 to honor the legacy and groundbreaking work of John Curtis Perry".

In his book Singapore: Unlikely Power (Oxford University Press, 2017) Perry brings together his scholarship in East Asia and Maritime history, and explores the history of Singapore, of how it rose to world prominence, from its Malay beginnings seven centuries ago, to its accelerated development in the 19th and 20th centuries, and up to the present day.

In 2015 Perry retired from active teaching, while continuing to pursue other academic activities. That same year it was announced that he was finishing a book about the implausibility of Singapore's success. That book, titled Singapore: Unlikely Power was published in 2017 by Oxford University Press.

Perry is the founding president of the Institute for Global Maritime Studies, a non-profit research organization. He served as IGMS' president from 2007 to 2014, continuing to be the Chair of the Board afterwards. He has been a consultant to several organizations, including the Policy Planning Branch of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea, the Japan Export Trade Promotion Organization (currently the Japan External Trade Organization, JETRO), and Rhumb Line LLC. He also served as a director of the Japan America Society of New Hampshire, and is a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society since 1990. He is a senior advisor and director of the Japan Society of Boston.

In his early career, his teaching and research focus was American-East Asian relations, especially with Japan. In the early 2000s, he shifted his focus to maritime studies in order to explore the history of human interactions via the sea. From 1985 to 1997, he was the director of the North Pacific Program, and then director of the Maritime Studies program. He taught courses including Maritime History and Globalization and The International Relations of the China Seas.

In 2000, Fletcher students and friends established the John Curtis Perry Fellowship for a deserving Fletcher student.

In 1995 Perry also took an interest in the Russian Tsar's family dynamics, partnering with Constantine Pleshakov [de] in researching the Romanovs' family history from the youth of Alexander III in the 1860s to the death in 1960 of his last surviving daughter. Their research, was published in a book The Flight of the Romanovs: A Family Saga (1999), the first book to provide a biography of the family as a whole. Perry and Pleshakov, at the invitation of the Russian government, attended in 1998 the burial of the remains of Tsar Nicholas II and his family.

In Facing West: Americans and the Opening of the Pacific (1995), Perry explored the attempts and successes by individuals in connecting the North Pacific with sail, steam, and aviation. He stated that the book was "concerned with people, not policy. The United States had no policy for bridging the Pacific [before WWII]." Furthermore, he mostly avoided referring to wars and geopolitical struggles, and rather focused on the vision, entrepreneurship, and courage of Americans who strove to bridge the Pacific. "American activity was largely private, not governmental; individual and not collective; sporadic, not systematic", Perry said, and Americans were propelled by the lure of profitable commerce and a sense of destiny to be the dominant force in the Pacific. Perry concluded that, "although Americans failed to grasp the Orient as they hoped, the power of the myth that pushed them there enabled them to do something bigger, something real. More than any other people, Americans pulled the North Pacific region together and created the essential framework for the long-anticipated Pacific era".

In 1991, the Japanese Government awarded Perry the imperial decoration of the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Third Class (Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon), for his contributions to American-Japanese relations.

The book Sentimental Imperialists: The American Experience in East Asia (1981, co-authored with James Thomson and Peter W. Stanley) recounts the American experience of East Asia, from approximately 1784 until the fall of Saigon in 1975, discerning four major underlying patterns: competitive nationalism, mutual ethnocentrism, multilateral ignorance, and "a distinctive American sense of mission to 'do good' that has been the driving force behind American imperialism in East Asia".

In the book Beneath the Eagle's Wings: Americans in Occupied Japan (1980), Perry asserted that the post-WWII American occupation of Japan was a major success, despite the odds. Americans came into Japan full of vitality and energy, convinced of the superiority of their own culture and its suitability for Japan, and unencumbered by much knowledge of Japan's history or culture. These American characteristics might have been reasons for failure, but paradoxically the occupation was an extraordinary success: "a landmark in human history," Perry states.

Perry was a visiting research associate at Harvard's Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies from 1976 to 1979, and at the Japan Institute (later renamed Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies) from 1979 to 1980.

Singapore was fortunate to have its independence in 1965 coincide with a leap in global wealth and integration, and technological advancements in maritime shipping (the large bulk carrier, containerization). However, these advances combined with Singapore's natural maritime advantages would alone not have been enough to support the sustenance of all its population. Under the skillful leadership and "technocratic brilliance" of Lee Kuan Yew, the country pursued a policy of pragmatism, where instead of blaming the british for their colonial rule, it embraced the traditions of British law, order, stability, openness to outside world, and free trade. Similarly Singapore did not remain bitter after Japan's "cruel" occupation during World War II, instead embracing the Japanese for what they could offer: technology and capital to develop Singapore's industry.

Later, he attended Harvard University for his PhD in history, concluding in 1962 with his thesis Great Britain and the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1858-1905. His doctoral advisors were Edwin O. Reischauer, a japanologist, and Robert G. Albion, a maritime historian; both the leading scholars in their fields at the time.

From 1962 until 1966, Perry was Assistant Professor of History at Connecticut College, and from 1966 to 1980, he was Assistant Professor, Professor of History, and Director of the East Asian Studies Program at Carleton College. In 1980, he joined the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, becoming the Henry Willard Denison Chair of History in 1981.

In 1957, Perry married Sarah Hollis French, of Farmington, Connecticut. They have five children and ten grandchildren.

Perry attended Friends schools in Washington, DC and New York City, subsequently going to Yale College for his bachelor's degree in Chinese Studies, graduating in 1952. At Yale he also pursued a master of arts in Foreign Area Studies.

The New York Times summarized the book as "a description and deflation of a series of illusions: the illusion of a commercial pot-of-gold at the end of a Pacific rainbow, the illusion that the United States had an attainable destiny to convert China to Christianity and modern democracy, the illusion that it was within American power to build a united, anti-Communist China after 1945 and the illusion that the Vietnam war was a test of America's dedication to freedom. Underlying all these illusions was the unstated assumption that Americans were active and Asians passive and that the outcome of any transaction was determined by what Americans thought and did. This assumption united the missionary enthusiasts of the 19th century, the exponents of the United States as China's political savior and guide to the 20th century, the McCarthyites searching for those who 'lost China,' and the Johnsonian visionaries dreaming of Mekong River Authorities while directing the fighting in Vietnam from computerized and air conditioned command centers."

John Curtis Perry also known as John Perry (born 18 July 1930) is an East Asian and Oceanic studies professor and historian. He is the Henry Willard Denison Professor Emeritus of History at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University. He was also the director of that school's Maritime Studies program and founding president of the Institute for Global Maritime Studies, until his retirement in 2014.

Singapore has no natural resources except for its natural deep-water port shielded from typhoons, pushing the city-state to be always open to international trade. First it took advantage of regional trade, and with the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and its strategic location in the Malacca strait it became the most important port along the world's most busy maritime route. With the British arrival in the 1819 and the creation of the modern Singapore, its international connections grew as it meshed with the global reach of the British empire. Perry explores how Stamford Raffles played an important role in the colonial beginnings of the city. In addition, advancements elsewhere such as the invention of the Telegraph gave Singapore greater prominence.