Lawrence Fouraker majored in Latin American history at Harvard College with a minor concentration in East Asian history. He then launched a moderately successful house-painting company, but ultimately his interest in history led him to seek further education. He studied Asian history at the University of California at Berkeley, where he earned both Masters and Ph.D. degrees. In the course of research and language study he lived in Japan for a total of three years. Fouraker has also traveled to other Asian countries, and is cautiously optimistic that the ongoing advances in technology and communication will foster amicable ties among the people of Asia and the world.
Fouraker's Ph.D. dissertation focused on the business-state relationship in early 20th-century Japan. He is presently expanding this research into a book on the cultural and intellectual history of interwar Japan. In the meantime, an article he wrote on Japanese politics in the 1930s recently appeared in a scholarly journal.
After graduate school, Fouraker returned to Harvard for a postdoctoral fellowship. Before joining the faculty at Fisher he taught history at institutions including Wellesley, Skidmore, Boston University, and Georgetown.
Fouraker lives in a nearby suburb. He enjoy daily walks, rowing a single scull on the canal, and skiing. Attracted to the Rochester area in part because of its reputation for abundant snowfall, Fouraker skis rapidly but without grace.
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