ON-CHO NG and Q. EDWARD WANG. Mirroring the Past: The Writing and Use of History in Imperial China. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. 2005. Pp. xxiii, 306. $50.00

Abstract

Its modest length is deceptive, for this book offers a comprehensive, engaging, and nuanced survey of historical practice in traditional China while eluding the pitfalls common to works with multiple authors. On-cho Ng and Q. Edward Wang draw on recent Chinese, Japanese, and Western secondary scholarship to survey two millennia of historical writing and criticism, starting with the classical period and continuing into the Qing dynasty. Their book is chronologically organized around the major dynastic epochs to highlight the “dominant modes” for each period and the impact of political and cultural developments on historical practice (p. xxii). Similar works in China and Taiwan tend to be written by teams of scholars, creating unevenness in quality. The two-author arrangement here compares well to the better single-authored works in Chinese, such as the trilogy by Du Weiyun. But the authors go beyond mere synthesis to offer fresh insights, such as astutely differentiating European conceptions of “objectivity” from Chinese notions of “straightforwardness” or forthrightness (p. 22). Ng and Wang should also be commended for avoiding the imposition of Western terms and expectations on Chinese historical practice.