Jonathan D. Spence, the scholar whose books sought to explain Chinese history to Western audiences, has died at 85, the New York Times reports. The retired Yale University professor had been battling Parkinson’s disease.

Spence, a native of England, was educated at Clare College, Cambridge, and moved to the United States to study at Yale.

He published several books about China in the 1970s and ’80s, including The Gate of Heavenly Peace, which won a Los Angeles Times Book Prize; The Question of Hu; and Chinese Roundabout.

His best-known book, The Search for Modern China, was published in 1990. Several books followed that, including The Chan’s Great Continent, Mao Zedong, and, most recently, Return to Dragon Mountain.

Readers and admirers of Spence paid tribute to him on social media. Atlantic deputy editor Ross Andersen tweeted, “RIP Jonathan Spence, who somehow managed to be a once-in-a-generation historian and a seriously elegant prose stylist too. His ‘Search for Modern China’ remains the best single volume history I’ve ever read, on any subject and his smaller books are also marvels of structure and approach.”

And historian Gina Anne Tam wrote, “Jonathan Spence taught so many of us the art of writing history in a way that’s emotional, powerful and full of humanity. I never met him, but when I was a young undergrad I wrote to him, and he responded with kindness—something that meant so much to me at the time.”

Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.