A Comprehensive History of Chinese Historical Thought: Pre-modern Volume

Author: Chen Pengming
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-12-01
Features: "Ancient and Modern, Chinese and Western" is an important issue in the history of modern Chinese historiographical thought. The term "ancient and modern" refers to the shift in the research focus of history from ancient history to contemporary and modern history, accompanied by a change in historical perspective from viewing ancient society as a golden age to evolutionism. This laid the ideological foundation for the eventual transformation into Marxist historical materialism. The term "Chinese and Western" refers to the relationship between Chinese and Western learning. From rejecting Western learning to learning from the barbarians, and then to seeking strength regardless of Chinese or Western, it was undoubtedly a progress. Different understandings of the techniques of the "barbarians" further reflected the gradual deepening of people's thoughts. From a historiographical perspective, the rise of Western learning in China was also the process of bourgeois new historiography replacing feudal old historiography. The time frame of this book's study is the early modern period, specifically the historiographical thought from 1840 to 1919, which is also referred to as late Qing historiographical thought for convenience. Due to the continuity of historiographical thought, the time frame of this book has been slightly expanded, with the upper limit extending to the May Fourth Movement of 1919. Some historians, although they passed away after 1919, are still discussed in this period because their thoughts and influences primarily occurred before this time. Conversely, for those historians whose main influence was in the later modern period, such as Zhang Taiyan, who had some influence in the early period, they are not specifically discussed in this period.