施坚雅（George William Skinner，1925-2008）是美国著名汉学家、人类学家。施坚雅出生于加州奥克兰的一个中产阶级家庭。从伯克利高中毕业后进入了深泉学院 (1942-1943）。1943年，他参加了密苏里谷学院为期两年的海军项目并与此期间学习了18个月的中文。之后进入康纳尔大学学习，1947以优异的成绩获得了康纳尔大学东亚研究的学士学位；1954年又获得了康纳尔大学的人类学博士学位。他曾担任康纳尔大学社会学讲师（1949），东南亚研究项目主任（1951-1955）和东亚研究助理研究员；担任过哥伦比亚大学的助理教授（1958-1960）；之后又担任过康纳尔大学人类学教授（1960-1965），斯坦福大学人类学教授（1965-1989）以及加州大学戴维斯分校的人类学教授（1990-2004）。1980年入选美国国家科学院；2001年被香港大学授予荣誉博士。
施坚雅先生的贡献涉及人类学、人口统计学、地理学、历史学以及社会学等五大领域，他曾几次考察中国内陆地区，并发表大量有关研究中国社会、经济结构、社会科学研究、农村和农民、人口、民族、海外华人的文章。
2005年5月，应本校历史地理研究中心之邀，施坚雅教授来校参加ECAI上海年会，并作了公开演讲。此期间，还在“东方大讲坛”作了该坛首次英语演讲。
2008年，施坚雅教授身患癌症，他以惊人的毅力，基本完成了预定研究项目。弥留之际，决定将全部英文藏书赠予本馆，将全部中文藏书赠予华盛顿大学，将研制成的数据库交华盛顿大学保管，供学术界自由使用。
2009年遵照施坚雅生前遗愿，施夫人把他收藏的4000多册藏书（刊）赠送给了我馆，涉及到18个类别，以社科总论、政治、经济、历史最多，占全部图书的87%。现在这些图书都已完成编目上架。欢迎广大读者阅览！
施坚雅先生发表过的文章以及著作有：
《曼谷华人社团领导力的研究以及泰国华人社会的历史调查》[人类学博士学位论文].纽约州, 以色佳：康纳尔大学，1954
《泰国华人社团：历史解析》. 纽约州, 以色佳：康纳尔大学出版社，1957
《泰国华人社团的领导与权力》[第三届亚洲研究学会专论]. 以色佳：康纳尔大学出版社, 1958
《中国农村的市场和社会结构》（第一部分）. 亚洲研究期刊. 1964, 24 (1): 3-44
《中国农村的市场和社会结构》（第二部分）. 亚洲研究期刊. 1965, 24 (2): 195-228
《中国农村的市场和社会结构》（第三部分）. 亚洲研究期刊. 1965,24 (3): 363-99）
《中华帝国晚期转移策略：区域体系分析》. 见： C.A. Smith. 经济体制. 区域分析(第一期).纽约：学术出版社, 1967: 327-364
《中华帝国晚期的城市》. 编者和贡献者. 加州斯坦福：斯坦福大学出版社, 1977
《中国历史的结构》. 亚洲研究学会年度轮值主席的讲演. 亚洲研究期刊. 1985,44（2）: 271-292
《日本德川家族的夫妻权力：生与死的问题》. 见：B.D.Miller. 性与性别等级. 纽约：剑桥大学出社, 1993, 236-270
《祖父母对于生育策略的影响：早期近代日本Nobi村民》. 人口学研究. 2004, 11:111-147
《家庭体系和人口进程》. 见：D.I.Kertzer, T.E.Fricke. 人类人口学：走向新的合成. 芝加哥：芝加哥大学出版社, 1997, 53-114
为方便读者利用施坚雅先生赠书，读者可通过馆藏目录可上网查询，预约外借，也可在服务中心现场取书外借。
George William skinner is the most eminent anthropological sinologist in the United States. Skinner was born in a middle-class family in Oakland, California. After graduated from Berkeley High School he attended Deep Springs College (1942-1943). In 1943 he joined the Navy V-12 Program at Missouri Valley College for two years, followed by 18 months of instruction in Chinese. He then matriculated at Cornell University, earning a bachelor’s degree with distinction in East Asian studies in 1947, and in1954, he received the Ph.D.in anthropology at Cornell. He used to serve as an instructor in sociology at Cornell in 1949, a field director of the Cornell Southeast Asia Project from 1951 to 1955 and he was a research associate in East Asian studies at Cornell. He then served as assistant professor of sociology at Columbia (1958-1960); he later became professor of anthropology at Cornell (1960-1965) and served as professor of anthropology at Stanford (1965-1989) and at the University of California at Davis (1990-2004). In 1980, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Hong Kong in 2001.
Skinner’s contributions to knowledge span five disciplines: anthropology, demography, geography, history, and sociology. He has made several on-the-spot investigations on China inland regions and published a large amount of articles on China society, China’s economic structure, social scientific researches, Chinese population and nationalities, overseas Chinese as well as rural China.
Invited by Center for Historical Geographic Studies of Fudan University, Professor Skinner participated in ECAI Shanghai Conference in May 2005 and made a public speech, during which period he also made the first English Speech for “Oriental Rostrum”.
With great persistence, Professor Skinner almost completed the scheduled research project in 2008 though he was suffering from cancer. Before he died, Skinner decided to donate all his English collections to Fundan University Library while Chinese collections together with the database he developed to University of Washington, and all the collections are free for researchers.
Mrs. Skinner donated over 1,000 books in 2009 to Fudan University Library according to Skinner’s will. The collections includes 9 volumes of Chinese books, 3 volumes of Japanese books and 1270 volumes of English books, covering 18 categories , among which are mainly general remarks on social science, politics, economics and history, accounting for 87% of the whole. Now the books have been catalogued and are placed in Lee Shau Kee Library on Jiangwan Campus opening to the reading public.
Published Books and Articles as follow:
1954
A Study of Chinese Community Leadership in Bangkok, Together with an Historical Survey of Chinese Society in Thailand. Doctoral dissertation in anthropology. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University.
1957
Chinese Society in Thailand: An Analytical History. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
1958
Leadership and Power in the Chinese Community of Thailand. Monographs of the Association for Asian Studies, III. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
1964
Marketing and social structure in rural China. Part I. J. Asia Stud. 24:3-44.
1965
Marketing and social structure in rural China. Part II. J. Asia Stud. 24:195-228.
Marketing and social structure in rural China. Part III. J. Asia Stud. 24:363-399.
1976
Mobility strategies in late imperial China: A regional-systems analysis. In Regional Analysis, vol. 1. Economic Systems, ed. C. A. Smith, pp. 327-364. New York: Academic Press.
1977
The City in Late Imperial China. Editor and contributor. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
1985
The structure of Chinese history. Presidential address, Association for Asian Studies. J. Asian Stud. 44(2):271-292.
1993
Conjugal power in Tokugawa Japanese families: A matter of life or death. In Sex and Gender Hierarchies, ed. B. D. Miller, pp. 236-270. New York: Cambridge University Press.
1997
Family systems and demographic processes. In Anthropological Demography: Toward a New Synthesis, eds. D. I. Kertzer and T. E. Fricke, pp. 53-114. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
2004
Grandparental effects on reproductive strategizing: Nobi villagers in early modern Japan. Demogr. Res. 11:111-147.