In 1983, Sun Longji, who was still studying for a doctorate at Stanford University, launched a "hard-hearted" reflection on Chinese culture with a book "The Deep Structure of Chinese Culture", making the famous assertion that "Chinese 'heart' develops more than 'brain'". Although Deep Structure is intended to be a cultural critique, the historian's keen interest in the long-term analysis of history and the structuralist perspective has become apparent.
More than thirty years after writing Deep Structure and settling in the United States, Sun Longji feels that he now "seems to look down a lot" on Chinese culture. Looking at an explicit culture with global influence in a foreign country with an outsider's eyes, he actually found another side of Chinese culture in his critique of the "deep structure of American culture."
However, he lamented more that americans were ignorant of history. From his beginning as a teaching assistant and rising to full professor, Sun Longji has taught general european history and world history courses at American universities, and the blankness of the humanistic literacy of American college students often surprises him. He even used the article "Classroom Lace Sketches" in his blog to record all kinds of ridiculous passages he encountered while teaching history in the United States: in the map test of the first class of the school, students did not even know the map was upside down, and filled in the position of the country into the ocean; in the crossword test, students filled in the answers such as "Huns", "Vikings", "Franks" after the spaces in "Anglo-Saxon"). Students spelled Confucius as "Confusion" to infuriate teachers, while the head of department instead implied that the "Asian" way of teaching did not meet the "requirements" of certain local groups.
Even when he returned to Taiwan to teach, he was worried about the chaos in the teaching of history. Equating world history with Western history, teaching world history is to talk about their own papers, and letting professors who study the history of the Ming and Qing dynasties teach world history, just because they have experience in staying in the West, they are really in short supply, so they hire doctors in art history and political science to indiscriminately count, and they only know the topic of their own papers... The subdivision of world history, which was originally vast and strictly demanding to be familiar with the changes in ancient and modern China and abroad, was handed over to the complete layman.
To a large extent, this is Sun Longji's original intention in writing the New World History from 2005. The lecture notes, originally written for the world history course of his freshman year, grew longer and longer, until one or two volumes were out and four or five volumes were planned, and he suddenly realized that this was no longer a textbook, but a completely new work that challenged the traditional view of global history and world history. In his view, global history is mostly based on a project (e.g., the origin of industrialization, gunpowder, plague, silk, cotton, blue and white porcelain, etc.), comparing regional differences, rather than a comprehensive world history, while the old world history mostly continues the framework of "Western-centrism" and is in urgent need of reform. The long-term analysis of history and the structuralist perspective reappear in The New World History, only this time, his ambition is to tell the "deep structure" of finding a general history of the world.
"New World History" can also be said to be a work that fills the backward gap in the field of world history in the Chinese academic community. The separation of Chinese history from world history, the unconscious expression of the traditional political concept of "Tianxiaism", and the profound influence of the historical view of social evolution theory are all limiting Chinese's objective understanding of the outside world. In Sun Longji's view, Chinese and Americans once again intersect on the issue of world history: "How much do we know about Russia now?" How much do we know about Korean and Vietnamese history? I find that almost all big countries don't know much about their neighbors. The least americans know about are Canada and Mexico. This is also a major motivation for this nearly old scholar to write so far.
<h3>"The New World History reconciles global history with world history."</h3>
Interface Culture: The cover of New World History says that you wrote this book in response to the challenge of the "global history" academic field in Europe and the United States, adjusting "Western-centrism" to "polycentrism". However, the "de-Western-centrism" has actually been discussed in Western historians for many years, where is the "new" of your New World History?
Sun Longji: Actually, the earliest idea was in 2005, when I wanted to write a world history handout for my freshman year's world history course. When I was teaching in Taiwan, I taught Global History as a graduate school course, and the same was true of the American university where I used to teach, global history is a course opened by the director of the institute, a doctoral course, a master's class. World History is a first-year basic course, and Global History is a capstone course. But then I found out that it was not very appropriate, I was not writing a textbook, and I might have to write four or five volumes in the future, which would definitely become a reference book. The original title of the book was "New Theory of World History", but the publisher said that readers would think it was a monograph, so it would be better to change it to "New World History", and I agreed at the time. I didn't want to turn it into a new perspective, but now it looks like I can look at it that way.
My New World History is not entirely global history. Global history is basically about grasping a dimension, such as blue and white porcelain, cotton, plague, or gunpowder, not limited to a certain location, vertically colluding to see how effective it is. For example, the recently published Empire of Cotton: A Global History discusses the historical rise of some places and the historical decline of some places from the perspective of cotton; or "Collapse", which proposes that adapting to environmental changes is the key to the survival of civilized society; and Peng Mulan's "The Great Divergence". He discussed only the question of when the West will part ways with the rest of the world. Now global history is going this way, you need to compare one region with another region that is similar to it, so global history is also called comparative history.
Global history is difficult to integrate into the curriculum of general world history. How does the General History of the World course talk about world history? In the past, the general history of the world was the history of Europe and the United States, and not even the United States - in the United States, the history of the world is like the history of the world in China, to remove their own country, to open another course to teach American history, not to talk about the history of the world. The same is true of China, which does not talk about Chinese history in the history of the world.
My new history of the world is to reconcile global history with world history. Instead of flipping the traditional concept of the four major civilizations and ancient countries, we are talking about their relationship with other ancestral civilizations. Later, I became more and more detached from the traditional framework, such as connecting the four empires, which is mentioned in the second book; the end of the ancient world was somewhat related to the Huns, which connected the history of Eurasia - in the traditional narrative of world history, wuhuhua did not talk about it, only how the Huns suddenly landed over Europe, and then led to the demise of the Roman Empire...
Interface Culture: How do you evaluate the French School of Almanacs? This school of thought, which was formed in the 1930s and 1940s, believes that history should go beyond the category of political history, integrate the study of social sciences and natural sciences, and tell the "general history" of society, and you argue in "New World History" that historical research should get rid of the shackles of the nation-state and integrate into the historical ecology of the northern boreal forests and Eurasian steppes. These attempts seem to be a continuation of this view of history?
Sun Longji: The almanac school has macroscopic and microscopic, and my general history writing method is not suitable for being too microscopic. Fernan Braudel (Braudel) proposed in the "History of the Mediterranean in the 16th Century" that there is a stable historical structure, and I may have been influenced by him, for example, I said that the trend of the Eurasian steppe over the past thousand years has been a repetition of a structure, or that China's dynastic changes in the past thousand years have all begun in the northeast, including the Ming Dynasty - don't look at the Ming Dynasty was established by Zhu Yuanzhang's Northern Expedition yuan dynasty, in fact, the Ming Dynasty, which was the capital of Nanjing, was destroyed by Ming Chengzu (Zhu Di) south. I was influenced by some of his structuralism. But Braudel's problem is that in order to prove that there is such a structure, it is stuck in the minutiae. Some book critics have made a metaphor that his historical narrative is a bit like the Impressionist painter's point depiction method, using countless points to form a painting, but world history cannot use points.
Interface Culture: In the process of writing The New World History, how did you classify the complicated materials? Judging from the historical data used, you attach great importance to the latest archaeological knowledge, what is your consideration?
Sun Longji: A big aspect is the promotion role of teaching. I taught undergraduate general history of the world in Taiwan for 10 years. When I was teaching in the United States, I was only asked to teach world history and East Asian history, but I took the initiative to ask Miao to teach Russian history, because I was a master of Russian history. Later, from the direction of East Asian history, he also derived from teaching the history of inland Asia Minor and reviewing the material himself. There have been studies in these directions before, the skeleton is in, of course, the main thing is the accumulation of the last ten years since 2005.
If the material is not new, you are just repeating what others have said. Now Iran has said that it has found a civilization older than the Two Rivers civilization, but the report has not yet been written. You'll at least hear about these latest discoveries. I try to use the new discoveries of the 21st century as much as possible, which of course affects my writing, for example, the interpretation of the entire history of Rome has changed. The view in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire that the Roman Empire was destroyed by barbarian nations is not the case now. If you read two chapters of the New World History about Rome, the Roman Emperor Theodosius I made an agreement with the Goths and Alans in 382 to call them "allies" and allow them to form their own units, to govern themselves by tribal law, and to set a precedent for the Empire to outsource the defense of entire provinces to military foreign workers. Later, the leader of this gothic-dominated miscellaneous army, Alaric, also tried to become Rome's "Terracotta Grand Marshal", although it was unsuccessful, but people with a mentality like him at least helped Western Rome to last for decades, and later the Goths and the Roman Empire perished together. So today there are no East Germanic languages, only West Germanic (England, Germany) and North Germanic (Northern Europe), and East Germania is gone, which is equivalent to saying that they did not go out of the ancient world. This is a new view of history.
Interface Culture: Breaking through the ancient kingdoms of the four major civilizations and connecting the four ancient empires on eurasia (Qin and Han, Guishuang, Sabbath, and Rome) into a civilization belt, respectively, are the important themes of the first and second volumes, respectively. Why are they so important?
Sun Longji: Because the traditional history of the world is mainly Western history. Journals of World History will not publish articles on Chinese history, because that is another field. In the history of the world, there is no china, there is an Indian part, but the Kushan Empire may not have heard of it, and the relationship with the Xiongnu cannot be linked. The birth of Christianity is also, without comparison, as if it were a very special phenomenon. In my book, I first proposed the concept of "Shia civilization" to complement the inherent "Shiloh civilization" and argue that the Hellenistic world transformed primitive Buddhism and ancient Israeli beliefs into universal Saviourish religions. Shakyamuni did not say the doctrine of saviour, everyone should be enlightened on their own; the statue is not original to Buddhism, Buddhism advocates emptiness, there can be no image, it is under the influence of Greek sculpture that Buddha statue sculpture appeared, and then through Mahayana Buddhism all the way to China, the Longmen Grottoes appeared. This is the influence of Hellenism, and it is also something that traditional world history does not tell.
<h3>"The problem with the study of Chinese history is that we have a lot of historical materials, but the framework is old</h3>."
Interface Culture: According to the chapter arrangement, the third volume seems to focus on the rise of the West in recent history. Under this topic, a recurring historical narrative paradigm is the division of marine peoples and non-marine peoples. One theory is that China is not a maritime people, so it has fallen behind in the competition of modern times. What do you think about that?
Sun Longji: The sea in the west should start from the Mediterranean Sea. Europe has a particularly large number of harbors, and although the area is smaller than africa, the coastline is much longer than that of Africa. The formulation of sea and land rights cannot be said to be completely outdated. The issue of maritime power is more discussed in the era of the rise of the West. What is special about Europe is that it is a remote area on the eurasian continent, and if you want to get to the economic center of Eurasia, namely the Indian Ocean and the Far East, you must pass through the sea. Of course, there is the Silk Road by land, but Europe is at the end, and there is an Islamic world in the middle, so it is necessary to go to the sea. Colonial cultivation requires labor, Europe has funds, the Americas have resources, Africa has manpower, and the resources of the West are allocated in this way, which is equivalent to saying that the ocean is an obstacle that needs to be crossed.
The mention of blue (sea) civilization and yellow (land) civilization is a bit large, but the ability to explain is still there, such as explaining why China suffered after the modern West entered the era of great navigation? China's coastal area is too narrow to become a climate, and the Haojie that appears there at best acts as an intermediary between outsiders and inland, such as Wang Zhi and Zheng Zhilong, the "HuiWang" of the Ming Dynasty. Zheng Zhilong headquartered the pirates in Japan, and his son Zheng Chenggong was half Japanese and he himself was Catholic. He controlled the armed fleet in that area, but he was not like the Westerners. The British regarded pirates as a national power, and later knighted, becoming the Royal Navy. Britain had an overseas colonial empire and a slave trade, something that could not have happened in the Chinese Empire. Overthrown in the Glorious Revolution, James II was Commander of the British Navy and President of the African Company before becoming King. The African company is a slave trading company, it is difficult for you to imagine the Wanli Emperor to be the president of a slave company, this is a very undignified thing, Chinese originally look down on business, you also trafficked in human beings, they do not matter, this is related to their only attempt to carry forward the national strength.
Interface Culture: From "The Deep Structure of Chinese Culture" in the 1980s to "New World History" in the past two years, how has your understanding of Chinese culture changed in these years?
Sun Longji: I seem to look down a lot. After I became an American citizen, I specifically criticized the American people (laughs), looked at the deep structure of American culture, and wrote "American Mother-Killing Culture: A History of the American Mass Mentality in the 20th Century." This is a rather original point of view, the Americans did not look at it from this point of view, I used "the stone of his mountain". They said Chinese didn't leave the womb, so I looked back from the same pipe. That's why I say in xinbali that China's "kind and lei feng-like mother" and American "demonized mother" are actually a set of diagonal lines that contain each other. Chinese mother worship actually has a tendency to kill the mother in some ways: you expect the mother to live completely for you, infinite sacrifice, which is equivalent to a kind of mother-killing.
Interface Culture: In The New World History, you argue that Chinese prehistoric research must destroy the "Four Idols." What do you think the admirable view of Chinese history should be?
Sun Longji: The current research method of Chinese history is still the 19th century straight-line social evolution theory, following the "law" from "matrilineal" to "patrilineal" society, in fact, there is no such general rule in the world, but I see that the current Chinese archaeological excavation reports will still apply these terms.
The other is the problem of Xia Shang Zhou, I am not saying that they do not exist, but I am saying that we must look at it with a critical eye. These dynasties must be a succession of dynasties, an orthodox succession of one dynasty after another? Are they co-existent, or are they irrelevant? As soon as it is written into an inheritance relationship, the Twenty-Five Histories of China are considered to start from the Xia Dynasty, to the Qing Dynasty, and then to the Republic of China, as if this is orthodox history, but in fact, this is a limitation of a framework. Now we have too much historical data, but the framework is old.
There are still the problems of "Centralism" and "Grand Centralism." If you find something else that is actually more advanced than the Central Plains, you must devalue its importance. It seems that Sanxingdui was not very public when it was first discovered, and I felt that there was such a thing outside the Central Plains! Because you are a frontier, but what is a frontier? This is a concept that was formed after the unification of the Qin and Han Dynasties, but they (Chinese scholars) seem to have self-censorship, and they can't do without this "medium". I am not saying that China's prehistory is wrong, but only pointing out some problems. Sometimes archaeological materials and written materials may not be compatible, but now we see the method of cooperation, as if to apply the inherent conclusions, blindly believe in the Xia Shang Zhou Dynasty project, and even want to push Chinese history forward.
<h3>"Polycentrism should have only one center of gravity, that is, the historian himself</h3>."
Interface Culture: You're against bringing a nation-state perspective to historical research, so does national history still have a meaning?
Sun Longji: Talking about history from the perspective of nationalism is starting from your own nation, and others will not look at it. Nationalism cannot die, And China is now relying on nationalism (narrative), but history cannot talk about it that way. For example, South Korea, North Korea and China compete for historical ownership of northeast China, that is, Goguryeo, and if you talk about it from a nationalist point of view, one side's claim that the other two will not accept it. I propose another plan, that is, to make the Northeast a historical unit of its own, and to return the history of the Northeast to the history of the world, not to the history of China, not to the history of Korea, nor to the history of Korea.
Interface Culture: Do you think it's possible for historical research to remain completely neutral?
Sun Longji: My work is indeed a response to Western-centrism, but I do not agree with the excessive decentrism, for example, Columbus and Copernicus are not important, this statement is not correct. John Darwin (John Darwin) wrote "The History of Global Empires: The Rise and Fall of Empires After Timur (1400-2000)", he felt that Columbus's discovery of the New World was not a great thing, he found that the economic center of Europe after the New World was mainly in the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic economic rise was after 1750, and the real advance was on the eve of the Opium War, so the watershed from the Middle Ages to the modern era should not be Columbus's discovery of the New World, but Timur's imperial expansion. This statement is not true. The map of the world we see today, what the earth looks like, where the continents are, was only after Columbus; the cosmic star map appeared after Copernicus, otherwise we would have thought we were the center of the universe.
I'm not in favor of excessive decentrism, just rightly. Polycentrism should have only one center of gravity, that is, the historian himself, from his point of view, of course, the angle should be inclusive, the amount of reading should be large, otherwise some things have not been seen, you will think that it has not happened. This is difficult because we are more or less limited by our own specific time and space, which is difficult to avoid.
Interface Culture: Why Are Chinese Historians Rarely Studying World History? Is this an unconscious manifestation of "tianxiaism" in traditional political concepts?
Sun Longji: In the Republic of China era, historians believed that world history was not a serious study, and even now some people in Taiwan ask this question: When a student of mine went to apply for a job, he met a professor who was sitting in the well and looking at the sky, saying that you study american history, and they do not have twenty-five histories. That's a point. Another point is the lack of training, which used to translate the general history of the history of the former Soviet Union and maintain a caliber with the Soviet view of history. Later, when the reform and opening up were really established, the first Egyptology center in China was established (Note: The former Northeast Normal University History Department of West Asia, North Africa, and European Ancient History Research Office was merged in 1984 to establish the Institute of The History of Classical Civilizations in the World, teaching Egyptology, Assyrianology, Greco-Roman classics, and various ancient languages and ancient scripts), which was already at the end of the 1980s. There has long been the study of Egyptology in Japan, why? Japan wants to leave Asia and enter Europe, and it thinks that it is already a big country, so you European and American teams sent to Egypt to excavate archaeology, and I will look at it the same as you. We don't seem to have that impulse, sooner or later, because China is on the rise. People do it, and we do it, that's for sure.
We don't know much about the outside world, mainly referring to the Islamic world. Although we have many Muslims, we know too little about the Islamic world. India needless to say, you can not find Chinese works, you can find a few, is to use color pictures to introduce india's god Buddha. How much do we know about Russia now? How much do we know about Korean and Vietnamese history? I find that almost all big countries don't know much about their neighbors. The least americans know about are Canada and Mexico.
Interface Culture: What do you think the future of China and the future world will look like?
Sun Longji: China's reform and opening up in the 1980s just happened to encounter the wave of Western globalization being hyped up, and it was in line with it, and it was not possible to do it sooner or later. As a result, China has taken advantage of this wave, and the same wave of globalization seems to have caused divisions within Europe and the United States today, such as the election of Trump, Brexit, and the rise of far-right parties in France. But I think this is a superficial phenomenon. Globalization has also caused inequality between rich and poor within China, but because everyone has risen together, it has not been felt for the time being, and this problem will appear sooner or later. Also, China's economy continues to develop in this way, if India is behind, can the earth bear this heavy load? This is a big problem.
According to the current situation, China is going out, and the United States says that I want to protect myself first and shrink inward, but this may also be temporary, and Trump may face a backlash from domestic opposition. The world order has changed too much now. Is it possible for us to accurately predict the future? Suddenly it changed. When it is unpredictable, a singularity occurs. The previous conventional laws do not apply at all. At present, of course, China's national power is going up, the United States is on the defensive, Europe seems to have many internal rifts, Japan is temporarily stable, and India's future is uncertain if the caste system does not end.
Profile: Sun Longji, originally from Zhejiang, was born in Chongqing in 1945, grew up in Hong Kong, received a university education in Taiwan, and obtained a master's degree in history from National Taiwan University. He studied Russian history at the University of Minnesota and received a master's degree from the University of Minnesota, and transferred to Stanford University to specialize in East Asian history (during which time he studied at Fudan University in Shanghai for one year) and received a doctorate. He has taught at many universities in the United States and Canada, and has personally taught "world history" general knowledge and undergraduate courses for more than ten years, accumulating rich teaching experience and research results. His major works include The Deep Structure of Chinese Culture, The Meridian of historians, The Unanheated Peoples, The Culture of Mother-Killing: A History of the American Mass Mentality in the 20th Century, and The Chinese National Character: From Nationhood to Individuality.
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