The Study of History of Historiography in Retrospect
This essay is written at the request of Professor Li Xiaoqian to report my interest in studying the his-tory of historiography.This field of study originates in the West,so that the Western historians have written the subject often without referring to the historiography anywhere except for the West.In fact,they do not see any legitimate historiography other than the West.Historiography,though not in name,in effect existed in China no later than the fifth century when Liu Xie wrote the chapter on"history biography"(shizhuan)in his noted treaties entitled Wenxin diaolong(The Literary Mind and the Carving of the Dragons).This particular chapter,however brief in words,does summarize historical works with judicious comments up to his own time.Then the 7th century Tang dynasty historian Liu Zhiji followed up with greater achievement in his celebrated volume entitled Shitong(History Illuminated).No similar work appeared in the West until a thousand years later.Down to the modern time,under the overwhelming influence of the West,Chinese historians began writing history of Chinese historiography in Western fashion.Of the numerous works on the subject of Zhongguo shixueshi(The History of Chinese Historiograhy),Jin Yufu's ran many editions and earned a great popularity.The successive works,though having much enriched the Jin book in contents,have rarely surpassed the basic framework of reference he has established.A new paradigm is still looked for.
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