Chinese historiography

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Related articles

Chinese historiography is the study of the techniques and sources used by historians to develop the recorded

history of China
.

Overview of Chinese history

Main article: History of China

The recording of events in Chinese history dates back to the

preservation bias important when interpreting Shang history. The first conscious attempt to record history in China may have been the inscription on the Zhou dynasty bronze Shi Qiang pan.[3][4][5]: 168–169  This and thousands of other Chinese bronze inscriptions
form our primary sources for the period in which they were interred in elite burials.

The oldest surviving history texts of China were compiled in the

Zuo zhuan, attributed to Zuo Qiuming in the 5th century BC, is the earliest Chinese work of narrative history and covers the period from 722 to 468 BC. The anonymous Zhan Guo Ce was a renowned ancient Chinese historical work composed of sporadic materials on the Warring States period
between the 3rd and 1st centuries BC.

The first systematic Chinese historical text, the

Han Dynasty. It covers the period from the time of the Yellow Emperor until the author's own lifetime. Two instances of systematic book-burning and a palace fire in the preceding centuries narrowed the sources available for this work.[6][7]: 228  Because of this highly praised and frequently copied work, Sima Qian is often regarded as the father of Chinese historiography. The Twenty-Four Histories
, the official histories of the dynasties considered legitimate by imperial Chinese historians, all copied Sima Qian's format. Typically, rulers initiating a new dynasty would employ scholars to compile a final history from the records of the previous one, using a broad variety of sources.

Around the turn of the millennium, father–son imperial librarians Liu Xiang and Liu Xin edited and catalogued a large number of early texts, including each individual text listed by name above. Much transmitted literature surviving today is known to be ultimately the version they edited down from a larger volume of material available at the time.[8]: 51  In 190, the imperial capital was again destroyed by arson, causing the loss of significant amounts of historical material.[7]: 244 

The Shitong was the first Chinese work about historiography. It was compiled by Liu Zhiji between 708 and 710 AD. The book describes the general pattern of the official dynastic histories with regard to the structure, method, arrangement, sequence, caption, and commentary, dating back to the Warring States period.

The

New History of the Five Dynasties, which covered five dynasties in over 70 chapters.[9]

Toward the end of the

Qian Mu, who was trained largely through independent study, were more conservative but remained innovative in their response to world trends.[10] In the 1920s, wide-ranging scholars, such as Guo Moruo, adapted Marxism in order to portray China as a nation among nations, rather than having an exotic and isolated history. The ensuing years saw historians such as Wu Han master both Western theories, including Marxism, and Chinese learning.[11]

Key organizing concepts

Dynastic cycle

Main articles: Dynastic cycle and Mandate of Heaven

Like the

sage kings Emperor Yao and Emperor Shun
.

Unlike Hesiod's system, however, the

golden age
of Yao and Shun could not be attained.

This

Zhang Xun
.

Multi-ethnic history

Traditional Chinese historiography includes states of other peoples (Mongols, Manchus, Tibetans etc.) in the dynastic history of China proper, ignoring their own historical traditions and considering them parts of China. Two historiographic traditions: of unity in East Asia as a historical norm for this region, and of dynasties successively reigning on the Son of Heaven's throne allowed Chinese elites describing historical process in China in simplified categories providing the basis for the concept of modern "unitary China" within the borders of the former Qing Empire, which was also ruled by Chinese emperors. However, deeper analysis reveals that, in fact, there was not a succession of dynasties ruled the same unitary China, but there were different states in certain regions of East Asia, some of which have been termed by later historiographers as the Empire ruled by the Son of the Heaven.[12]

As early as the 1930s, the American scholar

Western Asia, but he was among the scholars to argue against the assumption they had all been indigenous.[13]

Both the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China hold the view that Chinese history should include all the ethnic groups of the lands held by the Qing dynasty during its territorial peak, with these ethnicities forming part of the Zhonghua minzu (Chinese nation). This view is in contrast with Han chauvinism promoted by the Qing-era Tongmenghui. This expanded view encompasses internal and external tributary lands, as well as conquest dynasties in the history of a China seen as a coherent multi-ethnic nation since time immemorial, incorporating and accepting the contributions and cultures of non-Han ethnicities.

The acceptance of this view by ethnic minorities sometimes depends on their views on present-day issues. The

Mongols within their borders and holding territory that was conquered by the Khan.[16]

The Jin dynasty tradition of a new dynasty composing the official history for its preceding dynasty/dynasties has been seen to foster an ethnically inclusive interpretation of Chinese history. The compilation of official histories usually involved monumental intellectual labor. The Yuan and Qing dynasties, ruled by the Mongols and Manchus, faithfully carried out this practice, composing the official Chinese-language histories of the Han-ruled Song and Ming dynasties, respectively.

Recent Western scholars have reacted against the ethnically inclusive narrative in Communist-sponsored history, by writing revisionist histories of China such as the New Qing History that feature, according to James A. Millward, "a degree of 'partisanship' for the indigenous underdogs of frontier history". Scholarly interest in writing about Chinese minorities from non-Chinese perspectives is growing.[17] So too is the rejection of a unified cultural narrative in early China. Historians engaging with archaeological progress find increasingly demonstrated a rich amalgam of diverse cultures in regions the received literature positions as homogeneous.[18]: 449 

Marxism

Main article: Marxist historiography

Most Chinese history that is published in the People's Republic of China is based on a Marxist interpretation of history. These theories were first applied in the 1920s by Chinese scholars such as Guo Moruo, and became orthodoxy in academic study after 1949. The Marxist view of history is that history is governed by universal laws and that according to these laws, a society moves through a series of stages, with the transition between stages being driven by class struggle.[19] These stages are:

The official historical view within the People's Republic of China associates each of these stages with a particular era in Chinese history.

  • Slave society – Xia to Zhou
  • Feudal society (decentralized) – Qin to Sui
  • Feudal society (bureaucratic) – Tang to the First Opium War
  • Feudal society (semi-colonial) – First Opium War to end of Qing dynasty
  • Semi-feudal and Semi-capitalist society – Republican era
  • Socialist society –
    PRC
    1949 to present

Because of the strength of the Chinese Communist Party and the importance of the Marxist interpretation of history in legitimizing its rule, it was for many years difficult for historians within the PRC to actively argue in favor of non-Marxist and anti-Marxist interpretations of history. However, this political restriction is less confining than it may first appear in that the Marxist historical framework is surprisingly flexible, and it is a rather simple matter to modify an alternative historical theory to use language that at least does not challenge the Marxist interpretation of history.[20]

Partly because of the interest of Mao Zedong, historians in the 1950s took a special interest in the role of peasant rebellions in Chinese history and compiled documentary histories to examine them.[21]

There are several problems associated with imposing Marx's European-based framework on Chinese history. First, slavery existed throughout China's history but never as the primary form of labor. While the Zhou and earlier dynasties may be labeled as

Kondratiev waves
shows that capitalism first arose in Song dynasty China, although widespread trade was subsequently disrupted and then curtailed.

The Japanese scholar

post-war Japan. Tanigawa writes that historians in Japan fell into two schools. One held that China followed the set European pattern which Marxists thought to be universal; that is, from ancient slavery to medieval feudalism to modern capitalism; while another group argued that "Chinese society was extraordinarily saturated with stagnancy, as compared to the West" and assumed that China existed in a "qualitatively different historical world from Western society". That is, there is an argument between those who see "unilinear, monistic world history" and those who conceive of a "two-tracked or multi-tracked world history". Tanigawa reviewed the applications of these theories in Japanese writings about Chinese history and then tested them by analyzing the Six Dynasties 220–589 CE period, which Marxist historians saw as feudal. His conclusion was that China did not have feudalism in the sense that Marxists use, that Chinese military governments did not lead to a European-style military aristocracy. The period established social and political patterns which shaped China's history from that point on.[22]

There was a gradual relaxation of Marxist interpretation after the

Tian'anmen Square protest and other revolutions
in 1989, which damaged Marxism's ideological legitimacy in the eyes of Chinese academics.

Modernization

This view of Chinese history sees Chinese society as a traditional society needing to become modern, usually with the implicit assumption of Western society as the model.[24] Such a view was common amongst European and American historians during the 19th and early 20th centuries, but is now criticized for being a Eurocentric viewpoint, since such a view permits an implicit justification for breaking the society from its static past and bringing it into the modern world under European direction.[25]

By the mid-20th century, it was increasingly clear to historians that the notion of "changeless China" was untenable. A new concept, popularized by John Fairbank, was the notion of "change within tradition", which argued that China did change in the pre-modern period but that this change existed within certain cultural traditions. This notion has also been subject to the criticism that to say "China has not changed fundamentally" is tautological, since it requires that one look for things that have not changed and then arbitrarily define those as fundamental.

Nonetheless, studies seeing China's interaction with Europe as the driving force behind its recent history are still common. Such studies may consider the First Opium War as the starting point for China's modern period. Examples include the works of H.B. Morse, who wrote chronicles of China's international relations such as Trade and Relations of the Chinese Empire.[26] The Chinese convention is to use the word jindai ("modern") to refer to a timeframe for modernity which begins with the Opium wars and continues through the May Fourth period.[27]

In the 1950s, several of Fairbank's students argued that

Joseph Levenson and Mary C. Wright, and Albert Feuerwerker argued in effect that traditional Chinese values were a barrier to modernity and would have to be abandoned before China could make progress.[28] Wright concluded, "The failure of the T'ung-chih [Tongzhi] Restoration demonstrated with a rare clarity that even in the most favorable circumstances there is no way in which an effective modern state can be grafted onto a Confucian society. Yet in the decades that followed, the political ideas that had been tested and, for all their grandeur, found wanting, were never given a decent burial."[29]

In a different view of modernization, the Japanese historian

physiocrats than those of Adam Smith.[30]

Hydraulic despotism

Main article: Hydraulic empire

With ideas derived from Marx and

bureaucratic despotism inevitable in Oriental lands.[31]

When Wittfogel published his

Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power, critics pointed out that water management was given the high status China accorded to officials concerned with taxes, rituals, or fighting off bandits. The theory also has a strong orientalist bent, regarding all Asian states as generally the same while finding reasons for European polities not fitting the pattern.[32]

While Wittfogel's theories were not popular among Marxist historians in China, the economist Chi Ch'ao-ting used them in his influential 1936 book, Key Economic Areas in Chinese History, as Revealed in the Development of Public Works for Water-Control. The book identified key areas of grain production which, when controlled by a strong political power, permitted that power to dominate the rest of the country and enforce periods of stability.[33]

Convergence

Convergence theory, including Hu Shih and Ray Huang's involution theory, holds that the past 150 years have been a period in which Chinese and Western civilization have been in the process of converging into a world civilization. Such a view is heavily influenced by modernization theory but, in China's case, it is also strongly influenced by indigenous sources such as the notion of Shijie Datong or "Great Unity". It has tended to be less popular among more recent historians, as postmodern Western historians discount overarching narratives, and nationalist Chinese historians feel similar about narratives failing to account for some special or unique characteristics of Chinese culture.[34]

Anti-imperialism

Main article: Decolonization of knowledge

Closely related are colonial and

China's Response to the West (1953). This approach was attacked for ascribing the change in China to outside forces. In the 1980s, Paul Cohen, a student of Fairbank's, issued a call for a more "China-Centered history of China".[35]

Republican

The schools of thought on the

Sun Yatsen
's writings:

The most obvious criticism is the near-identical nature of "political tutelage" and of a "constitutional democracy" consisting only of the one-party rule until the 1990s. Against this, Chen Shui-bian proposed his own four-stage theory.

Postmodernism

Postmodern interpretations of Chinese history tend to reject narrative history and instead focus on a small subset of Chinese history, particularly the daily lives of ordinary people in particular locations or settings.

Long-term political economy

Zooming out from the dynastic cycle but maintaining focus on power dynamics, the following general periodization, based on the most powerful groups and the ways that power is used, has been proposed for Chinese history:[37]: 45 

  • The aristocratic settlement state (to c. 550 BCE)
  • Centralization of power with military revolution (c. 550 BCE – c. 25 CE)
  • Landowning families competing for central power and integrating the South (c. 25 – c. 755)
  • Imperial examination scholar-officials and commercialization (c. 755 – c. 1550)
  • Commercial interests with global convergence (since c. 1550)

Recent trends

From the beginning of Communist rule in 1949 until the 1980s, Chinese historical scholarship focused largely on the officially sanctioned Marxist theory of class struggle. From the time of Deng Xiaoping (1978–1992) on, there has been a drift towards a Marxist-inspired Chinese nationalist perspective, and consideration of China's contemporary international status has become of paramount importance in historical studies. The current focus tends to be on specifics of civilization in ancient China, and the general paradigm of how China has responded to the dual challenges of interactions with the outside world and modernization in the post-1700 era. Long abandoned as a research focus among most Western scholars due to postmodernism's influence, this remains the primary interest for most historians inside China.[citation needed]

The late 20th century and early 21st century have seen numerous studies of Chinese history that challenge traditional paradigms.

Chinese peasant in 1900 was seeing his life improve. In addition to the realization that there are major gaps in our knowledge of Chinese history is the equal realization that there are tremendous quantities of primary source material that have not yet been analyzed. Scholars are using previously overlooked documentary evidence, such as masses of government and family archives, and economic records such as census tax rolls, price records, and land surveys. In addition, artifacts such as vernacular novels, how-to manuals, and children's books are analyzed for clues about day-to-day life.[39]

Recent Western scholarship of China has been heavily influenced by

modernist narratives of China's backwardness and lack of development. The desire to challenge the preconception that 19th-century China was weak, for instance, has led to a scholarly interest in Qing expansion into Central Asia. Postmodern scholarship largely rejects grand narratives altogether, preferring to publish empirical studies on the socioeconomics, and political or cultural dynamics, of smaller communities within China.[40]

As of at least 2023, there has been a surge of historical writing about key leaders of the

Big Four allied leaders.[41]: 67  Recently released archival sources on the Nationalist era, including the Chiang Kai-shek diaries at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, have contributed to a surge in academic publishing on the period.[41]
: 68 

Nationalism

In China, historical scholarship remains largely

Carbon-14 dating and geographical records to correlate climates with cycles of calm and calamity in Chinese history. The traditionalist school of scholarship resorts to official imperial records and colloquial historical works, and analyzes the rise and fall of dynasties using Confucian philosophy, albeit modified by an institutional administration perspective.[42]

After 1911, writers, historians and scholars in China and abroad generally deprecated the late imperial system and its failures. However, in the 21st century, a highly favorable revisionism has emerged in the popular culture, in both the media and social media.[43][44] Florian Schneider argues that nationalism in China in the early twenty-first century is largely a product of the digital revolution and that a large fraction of the population participates as readers and commentators who relate ideas to their friends over the internet.[45][46]

See also

References

Citations

  1. ^ William G. Boltz, Early Chinese Writing, World Archaeology, Vol. 17, No. 3, Early Writing Systems. (Feb., 1986), pp. 420–436 (436).
  2. ^ David N. Keightley, "Art, Ancestors, and the Origins of Writing in China", Representations, No. 56, Special Issue: The New Erudition. (Autumn, 1996), pp.68–95 (68).
  3. ^
    ISBN 0-520-07028-3
    .
  4. ISBN 9780231109840
    .
  5. S2CID 163778957
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  6. JSTOR 24048050
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  7. ^
    S2CID 42299176
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  8. JSTOR 24047664
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  9. ^ "History of the Five Dynasties". World Digital Library. 1280–1368. Retrieved 2013-09-04.
  10. ^ Laurence A. Schneider, Ku Chieh-Kang and China's New History; Nationalism and the Quest for Alternative Traditions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), passim
  11. ^ Mary Gale Mazur, Wu Han, Historian: Son of China's Times (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2009)
  12. ^ Dmitriev, S.V.; Kuzmin, S.L. (2023). "Two Chinese historical myths: the concept of "unity" and the question of "dynasties"". Game of Thrones in the East: Political Myth and Reality. Moscow: Institute of Oriental Studies Russian Academy of Sciences. pp. 83–96.
  13. ^ Cotton (1989), p. passim.
  14. ^ McDonald, Hamish (2005-03-15). "Tibet part of China, Dalai Lama agrees". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2010-11-05.
  15. S2CID 144129470. Archived from the original
    (PDF) on 2017-08-09. Retrieved 2010-11-05.
  16. ^ Kucera, Joshua (2009-08-10). "The Search for Genghis Khan: Genghis Khan's Legacy Being Reappraised in China, Russia". EurasiaNet. Archived from the original on 2011-03-17. Retrieved 2010-11-05.
  17. ^ Millward, James A. (1996). "New Perspectives on the Qing Frontier". In Hershatter, Gail (ed.). Remapping China: Fissures in Historical Terrain. Stanford University Press. pp. 121–122.
  18. ISBN 9780521470308
  19. ^ Arif Dirlik, "The Universalization of a Concept: From 'Feudalism' to Feudalism in Chinese Marxist Historiography," Journal of Peasant Studies 12.2–3 (January/April 1985): 197–227.
  20. ^ Albert Feuerwerker, "China's History in Marxian Dress," The American Historical Review 66.2 (1961): 323–353. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1844030
  21. ^ James P. Harrison. The Communists and Chinese Peasant Rebellions; a Study in the Rewriting of Chinese History. New York: Atheneum, 1969.
  22. ^ Tanigawa (1985), p. 3.
  23. S2CID 146288705
    .
  24. ^ A prominent example is Gilbert Rozman, ed., The Modernization of China (New York: Free Press; London: Collier Macmillan, 1981), in which a series of essays analyzes "The Legacy of the Past" and "The Transformation."
  25. ^ Ch. 2 "Moving Beyond 'Tradition' and 'Modernity,'" Paul Cohen, Discovering History in China: American Historical Writing on the Recent Chinese Past (Columbia University Press, 1984; 2010)
  26. ^ Cohen, Discovering History in Chinap. 102
  27. OCLC 932368688
    .
  28. ^ Cohen, Discovering History in China, pp. 79–80.
  29. ^ Mary Clabaugh Wright. The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism: The T'ung-Chih Restoration, 1862–1874. (Stanford,: Stanford University Press, 1957), 300–12.
  30. ^ See, for instance, Joshua A. Fogel, Politics and Sinology: The Case of Naitō Kōnan (1866–1934) (Cambridge, Massachusetts; London: Council on East Asian Studies, distributed by Harvard University Press, 1984).
  31. ^ Stanislav Andreski (1985). The Use of Comparative Sociology. University of California Press. p. 165. GGKEY:Y0TY2LKP809. Retrieved 16 September 2013.
  32. ^ Frederick W. Mote, "The Growth of Chinese Despotism: A Critique of Wittfogel's Theory of Oriental Despotism as Applied to China," Oriens Extremus 8.1 (1961): 1–41.
  33. ISBN 9781135166748
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  34. ISBN 9780520082649
    .
  35. ^ Paul Cohen, Discovering History in China: American Historical Writing on the Recent Chinese Past (New York, London:: Columbia University Press, 1984), Ch 1 "The Problem with 'China's Response to the West,'pp. 1–56, and Ch 4, "Toward a China-Centered History of China," pp. 149–198.
  36. ^ Winston Hsieh, Chinese Historiography on the Revolution of 1911 : A Critical Survey and a Selected Bibliography (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University, 1975)
  37. JSTOR 23613239
    .
  38. ^ Cohen, 1984.
  39. ^ Debin Ma, "Growth, institutions and knowledge: a review and reflection on the historiography of 18th–20th century China." Australian Economic History Review 44.3 (2004): 259–277. online
  40. ^ Charles Horner, Rising China and Its Postmodern Fate: Memories of Empire in a New Global Context (2009) excerpt
  41. ^
    ISBN 978-1-009-29761-5
    .
  42. ^ Fitzgerald, John (1997). "Review of Rescuing History from the Nation: Questioning Narratives of Modern China". The China Journal. 38 (38): 219–22.
    JSTOR 2950363
    .
  43. ^ Haiyang Yu, "Glorious memories of imperial China and the rise of Chinese populist nationalism." Journal of Contemporary China 23.90 (2014): 1174–1187.
  44. ISBN 9781938134753
    .
  45. ^ Florian Schneider, "Mediated Massacre: Digital Nationalism and History Discourse on China's Web." Journal of Asian Studies 77.2 (2018): 429–452. Online
  46. ^ Florian Schneider, China's Digital Nationalism (Oxford UP, 2018) pp. 1–24.

Sources and further reading

Primary sources

External links

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