Chinese and Japanese Historiography: Some Trends, 1961-1966

• Published date: 01 May 1967
• DOI: 10.1177/000271626737100111
• Date: 01 May 1967
• Subject Matter: Articles

178

SUPPLEMENT

Chinese

and

Japanese

Historiography:

Some

Trends,

1961-1966

By

ARTHUR

F.

WRIGHT

and

JOHN

WHITNEY

HALL

Arthur

Frederick

Wright,

Ph.D.,

New

Haven,

Connecticut, taught

for

twelve

years

at

Stanford

University

and

is

now

Charles

Seymour

Professor

of

History

at

Yale

University.

He

is

a

past

president

of

the

Association

for

Asian

Studies

and

is

cur-

rently

chairman

of

the

Committee

on

Studies

of

Chinese

Civilization

of

the

American

Council

of

Learned

Societies.

He

is

the

author

of

Buddhism

in

Chinese

History

(

1959

)

and

served

as

editor

and

contributor

to

five

symposium

volumes

on

Chinese

thought

published

between

1953

and

1962.

John

Whitney

Hall,

Ph.D.,

New

Haven,

Connecticut,

has

been

Whitney

Griswold

Professor

of

History,

Yale

University,

since

1961.

From

1948

to

1961,

he

taught

at

the

Japanese

Center,

University

of

Michigan,

where

he

was

Director

from

1957

to

1961.

He

is

the

author

of

many

books

and

articles

on

Japanese

history.

OR

the

last

five

years

and

longer,

FChinese

historians

have

been

absent

from

international

meetings

of

histori-

ans.

Mao

Tse-tung

has

set

the

task

for

China’s

historians:

&dquo;to

examine

our

his-

torical

legacy

and

sum

it

up

critically

from

the

Marxist

viewpoint.&dquo;

I

But

the

question

of

what

Marxist

viewpoint

and

whose

interpretation,

plus

the

demand

for

studies

relevant

to

the

ongoing

revolution

(which

revolution?),

have

kept

the

Chinese

historical

community

in

turmoil.

The

volume

of

historical

publication

(excluding

archaeology)

has

declined

steadily

throughout

this

pe-

riod ;

so

has

the

publication

of

docu-

mentary

collections

which

was

one

of

the

bright

spots

in

the

preceding

decade.

Most

recently,

the

Cultural

Revolution

has

swept

the

land.

Universities,

muse-

ums,

and

institutes

have

been

closed;

historical

and

archaeological

journals

ceased

publication

in

the

summer

of

1966;

and

we

cannot

anticipate

what

role

will

be

given

to

history

and

histo-

rians

in

the

system

which

emerges

from

the

struggle

now

going

on.

To

summarize

the

trends

up

to

the

Cultural

Revolution

is

not

easy,

for

a

&dquo;trend&dquo;

assumes

some

sort

of

con-

tinuum,

and

we

cannot

now

assume

that

this

exists

or

will

exist

after

the

end

of

the

Cultural

Revolution.

A

confer-

ence

to

assess

the

historiography

of

the

People’s

Republic

was

held

at

Oxford

in

1964,

and

the

conference

findings

have

been

ably

summarized

by

Dr.

Harold

Kahn

of

the

University

of

Lon-

don

and

Professor

Albert

Feuerwerker

of

the

University

of

Michigan.2

2

In

1

Selected

Works

of

Mao

Tse-tung

(London,

1954-1956),

2,

p.

259,

as

quoted

in

Harold

Kahn

and

Albert

Feuerwerker,

"The

Ideology

of

Scholarship:

China’s

New

Historiography,"

The

China

Quarterly,

No.

22

(April-June,

1965),

p.

4.

2

The

article

cited

in

Footnote

1.

On

the

general

problem

of

historiography

in

the

Peo-

ple’s

Republic,

see

Albert

Feuerwerker,

"Chi-

nese

History

in

Marxian

Dress,"

American

179

what

follows

I

draw

on

their

article

and

on

impressions

derived

from

my

own

studies.

Historical

materialism

and

class

viewpoint

are

universal

truths

laid

down

by

the

Communist

leadership,

and

they

must

be

used

and

upheld

in

his-

torical

research.

At

the

same

time,

beginning

in

the

late

1950’s,

there

was

some

dissatisfaction

with

the

mechanical

application

of

such

concepts

to

the

study

of

the

historical

record,

which

resulted

in

anonymous

history-dynasties

without

&dquo;feu-

dal&dquo;

emperors

or

bureaucrats,

literature

minus

the

landlord-scholar-official,

nameless

peasant

rebellions

as

the

center

of

Chinese

history-which

emasculated

as

a

feudal

excrescence

the

two

thousand

year

core

of

traditional

Chinese

civilization.3

The

reappraisals

that

followed

from

this

nationalist

dissatisfaction

and

an

ap-

propriate

readjustment

of

the

party

line

for

historians

began

to

introduce

a

measure

of

historical

relativism

in

the

treatment

of

such

figures

as

the

Han

Emperor

Wu

and

the

Ch’ing

emperors

K’ang-Hsi

and

Ch’ien-lung.

But

this,

in

turn,

drew

criticism

from

the

ideo-

logues,

who

sensed

in

such

efforts

a

subtle

undermining

of the

dogmas

of

class

analysis

and

class

struggle

that

were

essential

to

the

state

ideology.

Archaeology

has

been

most

removed

from

the

daily

struggle

over

correct

methodology,

correct

viewpoint,

and

the

like.

Its

results,

as

published

in

such

journals

as

K’ao-ku

and

K’ao-ku

Hsueh-

Pao

and

in

separate

volumes,

have

been

of

great

importance

for

the

study

of

many

periods

of

Chinese

history.

The

opportunities

for

digs

offered

by

massive

public

works,

plus

a

small

but

vigorous

corps

of

veteran

archaeological

scholars,

plus

the

intense

national

pride

encouraged

by

the

People’s

Republic,

have

made

possible

a

surge

of

creative

scholarship.

And

what

has

been

pub-

lished

is

new

data,

permitting

the

re-

construction

of

segments

of

the

Chinese

past-for

example,

tombs

have

been

scientifically

excavated

in

many

prov-

inces.

The

findings

permit

the

filling

out

of

genealogies

of

great

families,

the

reconstruction

of

aspects

of

material

culture

hitherto

unknown,

and

confirma-

tion

of

modification

of

what

has

been

recorded

in

the

standard

histories.

The

discovery

of

coins

of

Justinian

in

a

Sui

Dynasty

( 581-617 )

tomb

refocused

interest

on

the

history

of

East-West

relations

at

that

time.4

4

In

one

article,

an

archaeologist

made

use

of

thousands

of

newly

excavated

mortuary

inscrip-

tions

to

reconstruct

the

administrative

geography

and

something

of

the

daily

life

in

the

metropolitan

area

around

the

Sui-T’ang

capital

of

Ch’ang-an.5

The

excavation

of

the

tomb

of

the Princess

Yung-t’ai

(who

died

in

706)

yielded

splendid

discoveries,

for

her

tomb

con-

tained

wall

paintings-a

veritable

gal-

lery

of

T’ang

Dynasty

(A.D.

618-906)

types

which

are,

in

addition

to

their

historical

interest,

uniquely

valuable

data

for

the

history

of

Chinese

paint-

ing.6

The

wall

foundations

of

one

of

the

world’s

greatest

historic

cities,

T’ang

Ch’ang-an,

have

been

excavated

Historical

Review

(1961).

For

a

survey

of

modern

history,

see

A.

Feuerwerker

and

S.

Cheng,

Chinese

Communist

Studies

of

Modern

Chinese

History

(Cambridge,

Mass.:

East

Asian

Research

Center,

Harvard

University,

1961).

3

Kahn

and

Feuerwerker,

op.

cit.,

p.

9.

4

Cf.

Hsia

Nai’s

report

on

this

discovery,

collected,

with

other

important

articles

in

his

K’ao-ku-hsueh

lun-wen

chi

[

Collected

Articles

on

Archaeology

]

(Peking,

1961),

pp.

135-142.

5

Wu

Po-lun,

"T’ang

Ch’ang-an

chiao-chü

yen-chiu"

[The

Suburbs

of

T’ang

Ch’ang-an]

Wen-shih,

No.

3 (Peking, 1963),

pp.

157-183.

This

is

a

sequel

to

his

administrative

geogra-

phy

of

the

area

which

appeared

in

K’ao-ku

Hsueh-pao,

No.

2 (1963),

pp.

87-98.

6

T’ang

Yung-t’ai

kung-chu

mu

pi-hua

chi

[

Collection

of

Wall

Paintings

from

the

Tomb

of

the

T’ang

Princess

Yung-t’ai

]

(large

folio;

6

colored

plates;

15

black

and

white;

Peking,

1963).

Introduction

by

Chu

Chang-ch’ao.