George Henry Kerr (Chinese: 葛超智; pinyin: Gé Chāozhì; Wade–Giles: Ko2 Ch‘ao1-chih4; November 7, 1911 – August 27, 1992), was a United States diplomat during World War II, and in later years he was a writer and an academic.
[1] 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.
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.
In the meantime, Kerr began a revision based on additional research as well as criticism of the first two books and published a 1958 volume, Okinawa: The History of an Island People.
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.
George Kerr was working for the American Foreign Service at the time of the transition and was present in Taiwan for the KMT occupation and resulting aftermath.
The book was out of print for a time, but Tuttle, the original publishers, reprinted it in 2000, adding a new introduction and an appendix by Okinawa history scholar Mitsugu Sakihara.