This important volume is the outcome of a series of workshops on the formation and development of academic disciplines in the early decades of 20th-century China. It consists of an introductory chapter by the editors and 11 substantial essays discussing the profound transformation of Chinese historical writing during a 40-year period following the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95. The majority of contributors to this fine collection are Chinese scholars either working at Western academic institutions or having been trained in the West. They bring vital background knowledge and expertise to the historical discussion, skilfully emphasizing the Chinese dimension of the historiographical development. Indeed, some contributors have already published extensively on historiographical issues.
The essays have been arranged in chronological order, beginning with a brief discussion of the well-established and highly sophisticated historiography in late imperial China. Building on the legacy of “evidential learning” (kaozhengxue), the re-emergence in the 19th century of the “statecraft” (jingshi) tradition in Chinese intellectual circles severely challenged the traditional historiographical vision that relied on the entrenched moral orthodoxy of the “golden age” of the distant past to provide the ideal model for the present. Kang Youwei (1858–1927) pushed statecraft ideas to their extreme, proposing a radical reinterpretation of Confucianism that would support reformism. He “preached a linear, progressive sense of time, but his vision was perhaps more millennial and religious than historical and secular” (p. 5).
Most contributors are agreed that the real transformation in Chinese historical writing was occasioned by China's humiliating defeat in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95. The subsequent upsurge of interest in new historical studies was reflected not only in the dramatic increase in translations of foreign historical texts into Chinese, but also – as Q. Edward Wang states in his chapter – in the growing exposure to Japanese attempts to establish a modern historical discipline, as derived from German historiographical developments. More importantly, it was the educational reforms after 1900 that prepared the way for the transition from an imperial history to a national history and its emergence as an autonomous and distinct discipline.
This excellent collection of essays introduces readers to the extraordinary diversity of historical writings and debates during the early decades of the 20th century. Thus, in 1902 Liang Qichao (1873–1929), an outspoken advocate of new learning and the application of Western ideas and theories in Chinese reforms, argued in On the New History (Xin shixue) that China's historians needed to create a new history as a vital contribution to saving the nation. It should be noted that he insisted on a new historiography that gave pride of place to “the people” rather than kings and heroes in the reconstruction of the national past. At the same time, some scholars during the last years of the Qing and the early Republic were attracted to the “Western origins” theory (Terrien de Lacouperie's Sino-Babylonianism). On the other hand, other emerging professional historians, such as the National Essence (guocui) faction of the late Qing, did not want to discard traditional historiography. While the creation of a new and modern China demanded a reimagining of the past, these scholars “believed this had to be done in a way that maintained the integrity of the inherited cultural traditions, because without those traditions there would be no community, no nation” (p. 10).
Indeed, as Liu Long-hsin's chapter indicates, while many of China's new historians employed Western methods to reinterpret China past, they were reluctant to discard traditional notions. While they were influenced by modern Western historiography, these scholars began to integrate this new knowledge with aspects of the inherited Chinese tradition. Moreover, as Axel Schneider notes in his contribution, there were also those who regarded the indigenous tradition superior to the new practices that came from abroad.
The archaeological discoveries of the late 1920s no doubt contributed to this trend. Whereas the new forms of disciplinary practice developed by iconoclastic scholars such as Gu Jiegang (1893–1980) had questioned the traditional dynastic chronology on account of inadequate sources, the excavations at the Shang capital at Anyang gradually restored to “history” what had been regarded by Gu and others as “myth.” By this time, a decidedly more nationalistic spirit had entered the Chinese historiographical discourse, reinforced by the rise of historical geography. In this connection, as Arif Dirlik shows, Marxist interpretations of Chinese history began to have a significant impact in the 1930s.
This collection of essays contributes significantly to our understanding of the lively debate in late Qing and early republican China that transformed imperial state-centred historiography into history as a modern academic discipline. The book will be of greatest relevance in graduate courses on modern Chinese history. Finally, although not the focus of this volume, we may ask how the contributors would have dealt with the changing role of history in the People's Republic of China.
