A. Tom Grunfeld


A. Tom Grunfeld AKA Tom Grunfeld is SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor at Empire State College of the State University of New York, who specializes in the modern history of East Asia, particularly of China and.

Background

Grunfeld received his BA from the State University of New York at Old Westbury, MA in Chinese history from the School of Oriental and African Studies, and PhD from New York University.

Career

He is often asked to comment on current Chinese and Tibetan affairs for the BBC and CNN International. The discussion is politicized. Those opposing Chinese entrance into Tibet, writes T. Neuhaus, sometimes emphasized "deeper" knowledge rather than fact gathering, and accused Grunfeld and Melvyn Goldstein saying that "they should know better" than to criticize pre-1950s Tibet for being a feudal society.
John Powers writes that Chinese and Tibetan writers attack each other in emotional language, and that the two sides "stake out extreme and uncompromising positions." Tibetan authors impugn Grunfeld's integrity and his authority to write. Powers classifies Grunfeld and Israel Epstein among those who "enthusiastically endorse the Chinese version of events and use much the same language as do Chinese writers to describe conditions in Tibet prior to the 1950s." Grunfeld, continues Powers, paints a picture of a "brutal, exploitative, and primitive society," one that was stratified into a nobility living in opulence while the majority of the people were serfs and slaves.
Grunfeld has been a member of the US–China Peoples Friendship Association and a staff member and contributor to its journal New China, as well as a member of the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars and contributor to its publication, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars . According to Jamyang Norbu, he speaks neither Chinese nor Tibetan, and used neither Tibetan nor Chinese sources in his book.
Regarding American journalist Edgar Snow, Grunfeld has concluded that he was not a Communist Party member, although he was sympathetic:
Having read through several decades of Snow's diaries, countless pages of correspondence, his FBI file, two biographies, at least one MA thesis and countless articles leads me to believe he was not a member of the CPUSA... That he was sympathetic to some of their ideas and activities is, to my mind, beyond doubt.

Awards

Grunfeld has received numerous awards funding travel and research from institutions including the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Research Foundation of City University of New York, the State University of New York, and the Ford Foundation. He has also been a Fulbright Senior Scholar.

Works

Grunfeld wrote his doctoral dissertation on "Friends of the Revolution: American Supporters of China's Communists, 1926–1939".
Books: Books written, edited, or co-written or co-edited include:
Articles: Articles published include: