He was regarded as one of the foremost historians of Ming dynasty China and a leading figure in the promotion of academic programs in Asian Studies during the 1950s and 1960s.
[1] After marrying Myrl Henderson in 1943, Hucker served in the United States Army Air Forces for the final two years of the Second World War, where he rose to the rank of major and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal.
During the 1950s and 1960s, he became a leading promoter of academic programs in Asian Studies in the U.S.[3] Hucker was awarded an honorary doctorate of humanities from Oakland University in 1974, and in 1979 was among a small number of American scholars of Chinese history who visited scholarly centers in China under the joint auspices of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
[10] Regarded as the most comprehensive guide to traditional Chinese government in a Western language, it translated and described the roles of every official title encountered in the historical texts of Imperial China, from legendary offices recorded in the Rites of Zhou up through the mid-Qing dynasty.
[14]: 1060 Several notable experts in the field wrote reviews of the book for scholarly journals, including Michael Loewe, Beatrice Bartlett, Edwin Pulleyblank, and Hans Bielenstein.
In his honor, the university established the Charles O. Hucker professorship of Buddhist Studies in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures,[3] with Luis O. Gómez appointed as the first such named professor in 1986.