This collection of essays seeks to provide additional insights into the processes surrounding the manufacturing and dissemination of historical knowledge in modern China. While the general time frame covered by this book spans from the late 1800s to the end of World War II, the main emphasis is on the period between the beginning of the xinzheng reforms during the late Qing (1902) and the immediate aftermath of Chiang Kai-shek's Northern Expedition (ca. 1930).
The authors are particularly interested in the politics of historical production outside the circles of erudite historians, opinion leaders, and other prominent figures on which much of modern scholarship has focused thus far. While such a scope of interests could also have covered media such as newspapers, novels, and films as source materials, most chapters primarily deal with history textbooks and general histories (tongshi). Several authors, such as Chiu-chun Lee, relate the emergence of such literature to a cascade of social and political mobilization efforts between the 1900s and the 1930s. They discuss, for example, the role of the history curriculum in state efforts to establish a public education system as part of citizen-building projects. Yet the readership of most such “textbooks” was not limited to students and included a growing general audience, catered to by a burgeoning world of commercial presses.
In political circles and other segments of Chinese society, there was a growing demand not only for timely interpretations of China's past, but also for information about the world at large. As Tze-ki Hon suggests, a new type of historian staked social and political claims through an alleged ability to provide orientation within a rapidly changing domestic and international environment. Such aspirations may have indeed—as Hon argues—continued certain ideals surrounding the institution of the scholar-official, yet at the same time, they were influenced by the globalizing role model of the intellectual as a politically concerned and historically aware individual.
Because the early twentieth century was a time of rising national discourses and levels of global awareness, it is small wonder that national historiography and world historical overviews were co-evolving with each other. Robert Culp shows that the nation-state paradigm was foundational to many world history textbooks. To be sure, world histories published in China remained characterized by Eurocentric narratives, ranging from the portrait of the nation-state as a common human telos to justifications of colonialism as a consequence of uneven modernization. In many accounts, however, the alleged universality of Europeanization also seemed to grant China greater levels of agency, and its recent history was often linked with anticolonial struggles elsewhere.
In spite of their due attention to Western, Japanese, and other influences, some contributors to the volume emphasize the historiographical continuities across the ruptures of the early twentieth century. Peter Zarrow, Mary Mazur, and Brian Moloughney point out that the division of Chinese history into dynastic cycles—together with certain elements from kaozheng traditions—continued to characterize much of the history writing during the post-1911 revolution era. The archival activities during the early Republican period, discussed by Shana Brown, carry the combined signatures of dynastic identities and nation-building tropes. Similar dynamics can also be observed in drafts of a history of the Qing dynasty after its fall—a topic that Madeleine Yue Dong explores in her chapter.
It is interesting to note that prominent historical concepts and storylines, many of which were the result of hybridization processes, could be used for highly divergent purposes. For example, as May-bo Ching stresses, similar racial concepts were invoked to support contesting ideas of national belonging, ranging from pluralistic visions to Han-centered identity patterns. Wai-keung Chan shows how competing textbooks in Nationalist- and Japanese-controlled territories in wartime China actually shared several key themes and narratives.
Throughout this edited volume, the spotlight remains on those groups that were involved in the production of history textbooks and a few other genres. Yet some of the central protagonists in the manufacturing of wider worldviews and historical imagery are hardly mentioned. The highly influential scholar and translator Yan Fu, for instance, is only referred to once, and such important currents as the New Culture Movement remain in the very background of the analyses. The point is well taken that the authors want to bring to light many previously neglected groups involved in the politics of historical production. It remains questionable, however, whether this can be done best by ignoring many of the most prominent figures and significant currents in that same realm.
Despite such minor shortcomings, this collection of essays is extremely helpful to researchers in the field. Its contributions are well documented and grant insights into source materials that, thus far, have stood outside the main focus of recent scholarship.
