George H. Kerr
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George H. Kerr (November 1911–August 27, 1992) was a United States diplomat during World War II. He was also known as 葛超智（or柯喬治）in Taiwan.
Kerr was born in Pennsylvania. He lived in Japan and Taiwan before World War II. As a Lieutenant in the United States Naval Reserve, Kerr worked for the U.S. Navy as a Taiwan expert and instructed future military government officers during the Pacific War.
After the war, Kerr returned to Taiwan in 1945 as an Assistant Naval Attaché, escorting the newly appointed Chinese Governor-General Chen Yi to the Japanese surrender of Taiwan on October 25, 1945. George Kerr was present in his official capacity as a civil affairs officer of the U.S. Navy Attache's Office to the Republic of China government in Chongqing. He ensured that the English version of the Japanese instrument of surrender did not exclude the official role of the U.S., unlike the Chinese translation. Later, he became a diplomat at the U.S. embassy in China but was soon a Foreign Service Staff Officer and Vice-Consul in Taipei where he witnessed the 228 Incident in 1947.
It was not till the early 1950s that he realized his wish to visit Okinawa, and with it a military commission to write a history, the purpose of which was to revive an independent Ryūkyūan identity. An able team of researcher-translators scoured Japan for historical sources on Okinawa. Then the immense intellectual powers of Kerr's younger days were brought to bear in synthesizing the material. It came out as Okinawa: Kingdom and Province (1953), and then in Japanese as Ryūkyū no rekishi (1955). In the meantime, Kerr absorbed more of Okinawa's history, paid attention to criticisms of the first two books, and published the 1958 volume.
Kerr was deeply concerned about the loss of Ryūkyūan history on the ground. So he pursued his Okinawan interests in a survey of the islands' cultural assets (1960-63). Experience in Yaeyama and Miyako told him that his perspective of Ryūkyūan history had been askew. He drafted, but never published, another book on Okinawa that placed far greater emphasis on the southern Ryūkyūs and their early economic interaction with China.
He has lectured Japanese history at the University of Washington, Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley. The open sections of Kerr's papers are available at the Okinawa Prefectural Archives in Haebaru, others at the Stanford, Taipei and Ryudai libraries.
Kerr's books on Taiwan are numerous. He championed the cause of Taiwan independence from China, thereby making himself a high-profile enemy to both Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong. (Chiang complained and Kerr lost his job at Stanford University.) While certainly an influential political writer and commentator, his reputation as a historian in Chinese history is questioned by many Sinologists due to his apparent stance against China. He also drafted a long book on 19th century Hawaii, thus making his life's work of a piece: the history of Pacific Ocean marine frontiers.
He is an author of many books and of numerous articles concerning Japan, Okinawa and Taiwan. Among them are the Formosa Home Rule Movement, Formosa Betrayed (1965), Descriptive Summary: George H. Kerr papers, 1943-1951, Okinawa: The History of an Island People(1958), and The Taiwan Confrontation Crisis (1986).
Formosa Betrayed was one of the most influential books on Taiwan during the transition between the Japanese colonial rule and the Nationalist Chinese administration. George Kerr was working for the American Foreign Service at the time and was present in Taiwan for the KMT occupation and resulting aftermath. Formosa Betrayed made a sharp rebuke of the Nationalist administration and made arguments in favor of Taiwanese independence. As a result, the English version only made one printing as the KMT bought the English Copyright in 1965 and never let the book resume printing, until 1992, when the second edition was published by Taiwan Publishing Co. The book is now legally available online (see External links below).
Okinawa: The History of an Island People covers the legendary past to the Battle of Okinawa in 542 very read-able pages. Eleven years before he died, Kerr wrote that 13,000 copies had been sold. The book was out of print for a time, but Tuttle, the original publishers, reprinted it a couple years ago by photo reproduction.
He died at age of 81 in Honolulu, Hawaii.
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