History, Space, and Ethnicity: The Chinese Worldview

Abstract

In writing this article, I attempt to answer two interrelated questions: ( i ) What was the Chinese perception of the world, or world history, before China came into close contact with the rest of the world in the nineteenth century? And (2) how did this perception affect the work of historians from the Han dynasty (206 b.c-a.d. 220) onward? Their interrelation is shown in that the former was not only reflected in the latter, but also, from time to time, molded by it. For it was the knowl edge of history that entertained and sustained the Chinese conception of the world and China's relation to it. From the most remote times, historical writing was already an indispensable basis of Chinese cul ture, promoting and propagating it with appropriate examples from the past. Confucius (551-479 b.c.), for example, once remarked, If I wish to set forth my theoretical judgments, nothing is as good as illus trating them through the depth and clarity of actual events.1 Examining the evolution of the Chinese worldview in historiogra phy, therefore, enables us to achieve a better understanding of tradi tional Chinese culture in general and Chinese historical thinking in particular. For instance, the Chinese conception of the world was