The Transnational Development of China’s Modern Historiography

Description

At the end of the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), the discipline of historical science in China experienced a far-reaching transformation. Traditional modes of recording and explaining the past were no longer seen as suitable for the young nation that had embraced the need for modernization in society and politics. In the Republican era (1912-1949), tens of thousands Chinese students went abroad to study and to transfer foreign knowledge to their compatriots. This volume contains the translations of four texts that analyze the PhD theses of three historians, Lei Haizong (1902–1962), Qi Sihe (1907–1980), and Jiang Tingfu (1895–1965) who had obtained their degree from the universities of Chicago, Harvard, and Columbia. The author Yang Zhao is the first global historian in China to recognize the significance of PhD theses that have long been overlooked, yet - as he shows - constitute an important source for understanding the exchange of historiographical knowledge between China and the United States. The translations have been made possible by the generous funding of the Volkswagen Foundation for the project Writing History with China (2021-28).