Current Research on Ming-Qing and Modern History in China

Abstract

For three decades American and Chinese historians dismissed each other's research as irrelevant ideological exercises. To American scholars, Chinese historical scholarship seemed only to echo latest party line, or line dispute. The debates over periodization, over proper moral judgment of historical figures, and, most recently, over supposed struggle of two lines between legalism and Confucianism seemed to have little academic substance. To Chinese scholars, American reinterpretations of history of Western imperialism in China as the impact of West, and of China's popular movements against imperialism and corrupt governments as failures to modernize seemed just so much Cold Warjargon and apologetics for imperialism. Even so, scholarship on two sides of Pacific have unavoidably exerted their influence on each other. American interpretations of Chinese history have helped shape Chinese historiography, if only by negative example. At same time, American study of China, even if unwittingly, has been profoundly shaped by work of Chinese scholars. The influence is most apparent where current trends in American social science have merged with interests and work of Chinese historians. The most notable examples are studies of popular movements and social and economic history of China, in which our debt to Chinese scholarship of 1950s and 1960s has yet to be fully recognized.