Disassembly and Reconstruction—Modern Chinese Historiography and the Transformation of Confucian Thought

Author: Sheng Banghe
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-09-01
Features: Eastern Scholars Series. In a sense, the 20th century of China was a century of cultural construction. The transformation from an agricultural China to an industrial China, and the evolution from a traditional China to a modern China, along with the progress of social history, compelled China to prioritize cultural construction. This book aims to explain how modern Chinese culture is connected with and interacts with major discourses of social change, responding, updating, and rejuvenating. In the book, the author not only discusses Confucianism but also turns his attention to the changes in modern historiography, interpreting the mechanisms of mutual linkage and inspiration between Chinese historiography and Confucianism in cultural construction. This discussion forms the logical structure of the book, exploring the disintegration of the "old history" and the comprehensive creation of the "new history," the fading of the "old Confucianism" like candle smoke and ashes, and the search for a place for the "new Confucianism." It also describes the winding path of the "suggestion," "deconstruction," "reconstruction," and "synthesis" in the cultural construction of modern China. The author emphasizes the discussion of modern Chinese academic schools, their evolution, and their cultural construction theories, exploring the significance of the "national" call in the wave of "globalization," and answering how to create the "modernity adaptation" of the "tradition." This book is both a reiteration of the topic of "cultural renewal" from the author's previously published works "Core and Periphery" and "East Asia: The Spiritual Journey Toward Modernity," and also a new interpretation of the author's research on the history of modern Chinese academic thought and historiography, compiling the fruits of his reflections. Those who are concerned about the direction of modern Chinese academia, cultural changes, and the prospects of modernization should read this book.