Ten Essays on the Historiography of Modern China 300 Words After Reading

Reading "Ten Essays on the Historiography of Modern China"

Historiography has a long tradition in China, and the time for the establishment of the Western-style academic division that we are practicing today is not very long. However, in the early years of the 20th century, when China's "new historiography" was in full swing, Zhang Taiyan and Liang Qichao already put forward the idea of what is now called "interdisciplinary research". In recent years, this orientation has been strongly advocated in mainland China. However, if we look at it from a social perspective, the boundaries of the various subdisciplines under the discipline of historiography are still relatively obvious. For example, modern Chinese history and modern Chinese history are now mostly "integrated" into a single subject in various universities, and the "boundaries" are still relatively clear in terms of the curriculum, the composition of societies, and the convening of symposia on the subject.

The first half, or the examination of an old book, has been a major part of the modern academic tradition.

The first half of the course either examines the rise and fall of an old book in the modern academic system, or focuses on the parallel development of many melodies in scholarship, or reveals the transfer of the academic paradigm, or analyzes the mismatch between the old and the new view of history, or explores the loss and gain of historical memory.

This chapter reconstructs in detail the evolution of the image of the Classic of Mountains and Seas in the perception of scholars throughout the ages, and uses the book as a mirror to reflect the changing attitudes of scholars in different eras about whether or not its content is credible or to what extent it can be relied upon, which should provide a lot of revelatory insight into the history of Chinese academia and even the history of ideas. The Classic of Mountains and Seas has been regarded as an old book related to history for quite a long time, and it is generally not suspected to be a "pre-Qin ancient book"; while the Qianjia style of learning is not as unified as it used to be recognized, the scholars of the Qianjia era were divided in their views on the Classic of Mountains and Seas. To the Republic of China, the new cultural movement team Republic of China historiography or the expansion of historical data tendency in the emancipation of the impact of further exploration, by the Qianjia style of learning, many skeptics of these documents are a seemingly more "strict" view of "scientific" historiography. And traveled for many years in Europe, the Republic of new historians FuShiNian more consciously put forward the value of ancient unorthodox historical materials. Although the new school of scholars in the early Republic of China had different attitudes toward the Shanhaijing, and its usability may still be disputed today, no scholar probably doubts that it preserves a considerable amount of ancient historical materials. Qianjia era to open its end of academic pluralism tendency can have the undercurrent and become the mainstream, thanks to the early civil liberation brought about by the "new vision" of the gift, "Shan Hai Jing" of the ups and downs of the evolution of modern Chinese historiography is also reflected in the course.

The second half of the book is mainly a dialogue with young historians, discussing the interpretation of historical materials, the presentation of history, the direction of research in modern history, and the impact of postmodernism on historiography in relation to the "method of historiography".

Such as the interpretation of Chen Yincheng's historical materials and academic expression of the conjecture; Chen Yincheng should not be forgotten academic masters, in the collective historical memory of our academic community, but in quite a period of time basically be "forgotten" until recent years and was "newly discovered! ". Or because of this forgetfulness, the image of Mr. Chen himself and "Chen Yinke's academics" seems to have become rusty, and many attempts have been made to revise or reshape the "image of Chen Yinke" in our historical memory. Due to the ambiguity of "Chen Yincheng's image", the opinions of the academic community are also very different as to whether his expertise in history is imaginary or real. In fact, Chen Yincke was an outstanding representative of the Republic of China's "New Song Studies," which was characterized by "esoteric and subtle" historical interpretations based on solid historical materials. Zhao Yuanren recalled, "Yin Ke always said that you do not get the basic materials clear, in a hurry to discuss the micro-aggression, the conclusion is still unreliable". It can be seen that Mr. Chen's ultimate goal of history is in the basic materials to figure out the conclusion of the style of the micro-phrase, which is the modern "new Song" and Qianjia "Han" and traditional Song a major difference

History is different from other disciplines, the main feature is the time.

The main feature that distinguishes historiography from other disciplines is its temporal character, which is based on historical materials. Fusnian had put forward the historiography is science, his insights are often misunderstood, but its special emphasis on the importance of historical materials, I think should still cause today's historians to pay attention to. In fact. If the "history of science" including the collection, organization, interpretation and use of historical materials, is really roughly covered the main content of historiography; the latter two that is, the interpretation and use of historical materials involved in the general so-called "historical knowledge", relatively more difficult,

Requirements also The latter two, interpretation and application of historical materials, are relatively more difficult and demanding. In Mr. Chen's view, the interpretation and use of historical materials are directly related to the representation of history, and the use of historical materials can be said to be the core factor of the representation of history, so he tends to combine the interpretation of historical materials with the representation of history and discuss them together. One of the characteristics of historiography is the time gap. Due to the different environments of the times and the intentions of the speakers, the meanings expressed by the same words may or may not be very different. Chen Yinke especially put forward, "interpretation of ancient books, its rigorous method, in not changing the original word, still use the idiomatic meaning". The point of "not changing the original words" should still attract the attention of today's scholars. Today's people can not be separated from the present day, so historians face the reality is not without the use of concepts as a tool for interpreting history, but more must emphasize the historical parties to the era of care and conceptual tools at the time as the basis.

"Expression" is a very important part of academic research, even Laozi, who advocated "Tao can be Tao, very Tao", also wrote five thousand words, the machine within the statement of their own research in the same person is even more. "Academic" is an indispensable part. ChenYinKe in the expression of this aspect does not seem to be particularly successful, HuShi think, "YinKe rule historiography, of course, is today's most knowledgeable, the most insightful, the most able to use the material of the people. But his articles are really not written in a superior manner". It can be seen that Chen Yinke's style of study is more "entangled and repetitive" is indeed many people's **** knowledge.

Ten Essays on the History of Modern China is related to the historiography of modern China, but it is not quite the same as that of the general field of "history and theory of historiography", which generally follows the path of "history without direction" and does not fix itself on a particular direction from a particular sub-specialty of history. It is not fixed in a particular direction of a specialized history subdiscipline. I hope that this book will be of some help to students who have already established history as their major, and I hope that those who come after them will not make the same mistakes, and that they will take the least detour as possible.