Ezra F. Vogel, an eminent scholar of East Asia at Harvard University whose writings about modern politics and society in China and Japan helped shape how the world understood the rise of those two Asian powers, died Dec. 20 in Cambridge, MA. He was 90.

In 1979, as Japan was ascending as an economic power, Professor Vogel published the book Japan as Number One: Lessons for America. It was as provocative title for a book in which he outlined in no-nonsense prose how and why Japan had caught up with, and in some cases had surpassed, the United States. Among the reasons he cited were Japan’s ability to govern and educate its citizens efficiently, and to control crime.

Two decades and several books later, Professor Vogel embarked on a comprehensive transformation of yet another ascendant Asian superpower: China. His lengthy book about Deng Xiaoping is one of the most in-depth biographies to date of the leader who had shepherded China out of the chaos of the Mao years, said The New York Times. The book won the 2012 Lionel Gelber Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for biography, among other honors.