Ichisada Miyazaki (宮崎市定, August 20, 1901 – May 24, 1995) was a Japanese historian specializing in Chinese history.
Miyazaki is the second son of a primary school teacher who dwelled in Iiyama (飯山)[1] in the northeast of Nagano Prefecture.
In the 1930s, Sino-Japanese relations were so difficult that Miyazaki was conscripted and appointed as the chief of a military horse ranch in 1932.
[5] In 1937, he was recommended by Tooru Haneda to attend the World Human anthropology and prehistoric archaeology conference in Bucharest, Romania.
After the meeting, he traveled to Istanbul, entered into Syria from Asia minor, and then visited Mosul and Baghdad.
After the Japanese defeat in World War II, he returned to his old campus until he retired in 1965,[7] where he continued his research at until 1995 when he died.
Moreover, when class ended he went to the local Catholic cathedral to study French with classmates.
[8] When he was an undergraduate he audited philosophy, economics, linguistics, religious studies, sinology and tangutology.
The paper "La Chine en France au XVIIIE siècle" (Paris, 1910) written by Henri Cordier impressed him.
He asserted that three renaissances had occurred: in west Asia, led by Saracens who revived the cultures centered on Syria.
Combining this theory with history of Eurasia, he developed the theory of historical stage division mentioned by his teacher, making him one of the earliest historians to erect a global perspective on historical studies.