Jonathan D. Spence (born August 11, 1936) is a British-born historian and public intellectual specializing in Chinese history. He was Sterling Professor of History at Yale University from 1993 to 2008. His most famous book is The Search for Modern China, which has become one of the standard texts on the last several hundred years of Chinese history. A prolific author, reviewer, and essayist, he has written a dozen books on China. He retired from Yale in 2008.