Scholars have long been warning ourselves of the constructive nature of historical sources and narratives we engage with. Charles Hartman is among the historians who directly tackle such historical construction in their research. His new monograph, focusing on the making of the master narrative of Song history, exemplifies an intriguing attempt at “living historiography” that “treats historical works as ever-changing, dynamic creations continually shaped by social and political processes and intersecting relationships among compilers, editors, copyists, printers, and readers” (p. 1). Building upon Hartman's rich studies on Song historiography and historical memories, The Making of Song Dynasty History systematically analyzes the rise of daoxue historiography, which intersected with Southern Song and Yuan political histories and gave life to the “grand allegory” to which most scholars of Song history ascribe. Moreover, along with his historiographical analysis, Hartman reveals an important theme of Song political culture—competition between two visions of governance: one based on “Confucian institutionalism” and the other on a “technocratic” model (p. 19).
The master narrative/grand allegory of Song history, as Hartman demonstrates, was “Confucian” (defined on p. 18), one that developed with the Southern Song daoxue movement and culminated in the Yuan compilation of the Song History. It embraced a pedagogical agenda to celebrate daoxue moral rectitude and featured a framework that explained Song history as an undulating struggle between positive (moral) and negative (nefarious) forces. This daoxue allegory, however, was not built from scratch by Southern Song daoxue historians. Neither was it merely a product of historiographical transformation; instead, its three themes grew out of Southern Song factional politics. The two parts of the book examine the sources and themes of the grand allegory.
Part one illustrates the “dynamic historiography” of some Song masterpieces that scholars have relied heavily on for studies of Song history—The Song State Compendium (chapter 1), Li Tao's Long Draft (chapter 2), Li Xinchuan's Chronological Record (chapter 3), and the Song History (chapter 5). These chapters elaborately analyze the historical sources, political contexts, and historiographical dynamics of these projects. For example, chapter 2 examines Li Tao not only as a historian but also as a politician. Hartman demonstrates that this great historian's historical enterprise was entangled with his active participation in the post-Qin Gui politics, especially his connection with the Sichuan-Fujian alliance in support of the daoxue movement. He coordinated historical sources with his political interpretation and values. Already in Li Tao's work, there existed political rhetoric similar to those later foregrounded by daoxue historians, such as the Taizu-Renzong axis of benevolent governance and a turning point of Song history in 1067 when the New Policies started.
Altogether, this part depicts a trajectory in which “daoxue historians” (described on pp. 143–45) drew on political notions and supportive narratives scattered in works by “proto-daoxue historians” such as Sima Guang and Zhao Ruyu (defined on pp. 168–69), as well as non-daoxue historians, including Li Tao and Li Xinchuan. Whereas in these pre-daoxue historical works, there were still tensions between these authors’ historian identity and their political agenda, the tensions dissolved in daoxue histories, started by Zhu Xi, systemized by Chen Jun, and finalized by Lü Zhong. They embraced and developed a daoxue historiography that repackaged and readjusted historical narratives to construct pedagogical histories for moral admonishment (chapter 4). This daoxue historiography was intentionally adopted by Toghto and his Chinese political allies when they had the Song History compiled as their means to triumph in political struggles against the Mongol nativist faction.
The second part tracks the formation of the three major themes of the grand allegory—fluorescence of Renzong's reign, a benevolent foundation set by Taizu, and a lineage of Nefarious ministers. The first two themes grew out of late Northern Song and Early Southern Song politics, particularly “the arrival of the Jurchen, the decline of the New Policies, and the liberation of Yuanyou learning” (p. 286). The concept of a lineage of evil took shape “in the efforts to reimplement literati governance after the assassination of Han Tuozhou in 1207” (p. 314) and shaped by rhythmic repressions of daoxue scholar-officials by autocratic governments. If the first two themes represent the positive forces, the third theme contrasts them with manifestations of negative counterforce. These themes constituted a historiographical scheme of explanatory cyclicity, at the heart of which was the constant struggles between Confucian literati and technocrats. Hartman proposes that an understanding of this dynamic, in turn, would help scholars with critical reading of Song sources free from the grand allegorical framework.
Overall, this book not only successfully demonstrates the historiographical process of the making of the Song history but also reveals that the Song was by no means “an age of Confucian rule”; rather, the governance was characterized by competing modalities—which will be the subject of a second volume worth looking forward to.
