An Historical Sketch Of Chinese Historiography

This book systematically traces the development of Chinese historiography from the 2nd century B.C. to the 19th century A.D. Refusing to fit the Chinese historical narration into the modern Western discourse, the author highlights the significant questions that concern traditional historians, their philosophical foundations, their development over three thousand years and their influence on the intelligentsia. China is a country defined in terms of its history and its historians have worked hard to record the past. However, this book approaches Chinese history from the very beginning not only as a way of recording, but also as a way of dealing with the past in order to orient the people of the present in the temporal dimension of their lives. This book was listed as the key textbook of the “Eleventh Five-year Plan” for college students in China.

This book systematically traces the development of Chinese historiography from the 2nd century B.C. to the 19th century A.D. Refusing to fit the Chinese historical narration into the modern Western discourse, the author highlights the significant questions that concern traditional historians, their philosophical foundations, their development over three thousand years and their influence on the intelligentsia. China is a country defined in terms of its history and its historians have worked hard to record the past. However, this book approaches Chinese history from the very beginning not only as a way of recording, but also as a way of dealing with the past in order to orient the people of the present in the temporal dimension of their lives. This book was listed as the key textbook of the ?Eleventh Five-year Plan? for college students in China.

Excerpt from A Sketch of Chinese History The present volume is written to meet a practical need. The author has long felt in his work as a teacher the want of a short history of China. Of larger histories, and of monographs treating fully of some one period, there is no lack, but a concise outline of Chinese history accenting the turning points in the life of the nation has not yet been produced. To reduce the voluminous native histories of China to a small compass is undoubtedly an ambitious undertaking, but yet it is a task that someone must attempt. The average student has not the time nor the inclination to wade through the cumbrous volumes which exist at present, and when he ventures to do so, he often becomes discouraged because of the impossibility of remembering the strange and difficult names of the persons and places with which the pages are crowded, and so perhaps lays down the book without having gained any very clear impression of the history as a whole. It is hoped that this brief survey of the entire field may be of service in making it easier for the reader to fix in his mind the salient points of the long story. In the spelling of the names of persons we have followed as far as possible one system throughout, namely, that of Professor Giles of Cambridge University. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

A critical examination of the rise of national history in early-twentieth-century China.

China is daily becoming more and more an object of interest and curiosity to European nations, in proportion as commerce, the fore-runner, if not the cause, of all improvement.in the arts of civilization, discloses its resources, and sheds new light on the character and intellectual cultivation of its inhabitants. Hitherto, the remoteness of its situation with respect to Britain, and the rude, inhospitable nature of its policy toward strangers, have concurred in perpetuating the erroneous impressions created by travelers imperfectly informed, or prone to exaggeration. Among the unfounded notions sedulously propagated by the advocates of arbitrary power, is the opinion that this vast empire, the government of which may be regarded as the beau ideal of despotism, has been torn by fewer revolutions and civil wars than the free states of the West; and that its military power is a kind of colossus, fabricated by the wisdom of ages, which no force or policy that could be exerted by any European nation would suffice to overthrow.--Amazon.com.

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