This chapter traces the academic trajectory of Hsu over more than six decades, focusing on the formation and evolution of his comparative paradigm for the study of literate civilizations. Divided into four major stages—social anthropology (1937–1948), culture and personality studies (1948–1961), psychological anthropology (1961–1978), and area studies (1978–1999)—the chapter examines how Hsu consistently reoriented his research around culturally embedded problems that Western paradigms failed to address. It highlights his transition from classical anthropological inquiries into taboo, witchcraft, and kinship to a systematic reconstruction of a theory that integrates social structure, cultural systems, and psychological mechanisms. Through a series of field studies in China, India, Japan, and the United States, Hsu developed key theoretical tools including the Dominant Dyad Hypothesis and Psychosocial Homeostasis, and advanced the field of psychological anthropology by replacing personality-centered models with affect- and relation-centered frameworks. The chapter concludes with Hsu’s final contributions to ethnic studies and area studies, positioning him as one of the very few scholars capable of conducting systematic civilizational comparison across China, the United States, India, and Japan.