Finishing /Sun Lanbo
This summary is the content of the 9th issue of the "Academic Flash Mob" series of activities hosted by the Department of History of Shanghai University.
Yang Changyun (Moderator, Shanghai University):
In recent years, when supervising graduate and undergraduate students to write their graduation papers, I feel that some students are less likely to use appropriate historical theories and methods for research, especially a considerable number of interdisciplinary graduate students who are very weak in the application of historical theories and methods. We know that both traditional historical theories and methods, as well as the various new historical theories and methods that followed—from the French School of Annals to the New Cultural History of the United States, from interdisciplinary methods to postmodernism, and so on—are the foundations of historical research. In view of the current general situation of the student population in historical research and the importance of historical theories and methods in historical writing, we have invited five scholars to discuss Western historical theories and methods today.
Liang Minyu (Shanghai Normal University):
I will focus on "Global Marxist Historiography and Its Academic Path: The British Paradigm". Historical theory is a very important field in the study of historiography, there has been a boom in research, but also for a period of silence. Recently, there have been new students, and there are many scholars or students who are now very enthusiastic about this field. The day before yesterday, I just happened to hear an academic lecture by Professor Zhao Shiyu of the Department of History of Peking University entitled "Historical Philosophy and the Historical Anthropology of Chinese Society", which was very rich in content, in which he specifically said that the study of Chinese historical theory has experienced several upsurges: the first time was the introduction of late Qing Western studies, the spread of ideas such as evolutionary theory that affected The Chinese intellectual circles, and a new historiography represented by Liang Qichao appeared. The second was the introduction of Marxist historiography, which produced a number of works on the theoretical system of historiography, which triggered a great discussion of social history. The third is the academic change since the 1980s, which has affected the present. I think this kind of academic history summary of the origin of the Theoretical System of Chinese Historiography is more reasonable. Today I mainly talk about Marxist historiography, which is not only a theoretical method and ideological system, but also a theoretical paradigm and practical form in historical research. International historian Georg Eagles believes that the evolution of Western historiography mainly exists in important historical paradigms such as classical historiography, modern historiography, annals historiography and Marxist historiography. When discussing the rise and fall of Western "cultural theory" and its historical critical spirit since the 1970s, the new American cultural historian Lynn Hunt also fully affirmed the four major historical research paradigms and their influence issues, such as Marxism, modernization, the annals school, and identity politics that are particularly popular in the United States since World War II. Next, I will mainly start from three parts, one is the origin or origin of Marxist historiography; The second is the global situation of Marxism and Marxist historiography; The third is to take the British Marxist historical school as an example, involving the rise and dissemination of the global Marxist historical trend and the academic direction.
Liang Qichao
In the first part, I will first introduce the origin or origin of Marxist historiography, the early phenomena of Marxist historiography in Europe. As far as the development and achievements of historiography are concerned, the combination of Marxism and the study of history in various countries in the world has created a new situation in international historiography in the 20th century and presented a new contribution to scientific Marxist historiography. Since the 1840s, after the establishment of the materialist view of history, it has had a great influence on the development and influence of historiography. Especially since the 20th century, it has promoted the emergence of a new situation in international historiography, created a new paradigm of scientific Marxist historiography, and led to many schools of Marxist historiography, and there are many cross-cutting and exchanges with the western new historical schools. Because Marxist historiography itself is broad and profound and rich in connotations, there are still many deficiencies in the domestic historians in applying the materialist view of history. Since the emergence of the Marxist materialist view of history in the 1840s, its view of history, the concept of historiography, the concept of historiography, and the concept of its core have become one of the oldest sources and one of the most important paradigms of our historical theory. The early development of Marxist historiography and the form of its evolution are mainly manifested in a transformation of the ideological genealogy of many writers of classical Marxism and post-Marxism. There are two aspects, one is Mann's classic Marxist works, the creation of historical theories, ideological systems and practical achievements; The second is the early Marxist scholars of Europe, represented by Georgi Plekhanov, Franz Merlin, Augst Bebel, Karl Liebknecht, Karl Kautsky, Paul Raffager, Rosa Luxemburg, Edward Bernstein, and so on. Many of these early Marxists, European socialist theorists, and leaders of the workers' movement contain Marx's theories of history, of course, some of which are revised and some of which are distorted, but our domestic research in this area is still in the field of international movement history, and has not yet been examined from the perspective of historical outlook and historiography, so I think it is necessary to conduct in-depth research.
The second part deals with the global distribution of Marxist historical thought in the 20th century. Since the 20th century, Marxist historiography has been widely disseminated and paid attention to around the world. There are three main characteristics of the performance: diversity of research groups, contrast in response positions, and extensive academic impact. During this period, Marxist historical thought experienced the global rise and regional national spread, which can be roughly divided into three periods, the first era is the 1930s and 1940s accompanied by the profound social crisis in the Western world, various social trends and academic trends of thought are unprecedentedly active, and Western Marxist historiography has also become a powerful historical trend or research paradigm, affecting the development direction of international historiography. The second era was the 1950s and 1980s, when the development of Marxist historiography in Britain, the United States, Germany, Italy, France and Canada together highlighted the theoretical form, conceptual change and scale level of Marxist historiography in the 20th century. The power of Marxist historiography in Africa, Latin America, and other countries is relatively weak due to its greater limitations. The third era was a new era of historiography after the 1990s, when Marxism became an international socio-cultural phenomenon and a political theoretical force. The tendency of the fusion of Marxism and historiography in the western historiography trend has formed a historical ideological and cultural trend.
If we want to continue to think about the Marxist historical trend since World War II, we must conduct in-depth and systematic investigation and research, the collation of its literature, the genealogy of its thought, the transformation of the branches of research paradigms and the academic influence of Marxism in specific countries, especially the academic status of some of these schools, from these multiple angles. Finally, it is more important to put it on the perspective of global correlation and spatial and spatial segmentation transformation, to explore the achievements of Marxist historiography in some countries, including what are its theoretical documents? What are its representative research results? What are some new changes in the state of academic thought and development?
Our research should not only stay in the ideological or political theory, but should go deep into the combing of academic history and the form of special topics, and focus on exploration and systematic exposition. From the perspective of the researcher and the object of study, we should pay attention to the two paths of historical practice. First, it is necessary to pay attention to the academic context and research path of the history of global historiography and intellectual history, and from the perspective of the general history of Marxist historiography, to sort out, explore and describe the growth environment, their academic life, and their writing achievements of each school and each historian, and finally summarize and summarize the connotation and characteristics of the history within the discipline and the history outside the discipline. Second, we should pay attention to the reflection of global intellectual history theory and the way or way of historical writing, and specifically analyze the reasons for the rise of historians of various schools, and the confrontation between historians' genealogies, ideological origins, and concepts.
We study historians mainly study the works of historians, of course, other related materials also need to be collected, including personal biographies of historians, specific records of activities, and related archival materials. These are important basic materials for analyzing the paradigm shift of historical theory and the genealogy of historical thought. Looking at the Chinese and foreign academic circles, the works and research results of Marxist historiography can be said to have been very rich and remarkable achievements. Nowadays, the global study of Marxist historiography has become spectacular, but our attention to the individual perspective of historians is not enough, so I look forward to more young and middle-aged scholars to pay attention to the study of Marxist historiography in the future.
Next, in the third part, I will mainly introduce the historical logic and academic research direction of British Marxist historiography. The background of the formation of the first generation of British Marxist historians has four aspects, the first is the research enthusiasm triggered by social trends, social movements and academic contexts in the 1930s and 1940s, which is the formation period of British Marxist historiography. The second was the formation of the Marxist Historians Group (September 1938). For example, the relationship between the British Communist Party (New Left) and the origins of British Marxist historiography is a question. The third is the evolution of the professionalization of historiography and the popularization of historiography, which is divided into two stages of development: the early and late stages. The last point is that from the relationship between social thought and academic genealogy, there is a problem of British social and political change and academic cultural tradition. Their representatives include Maurice Dobb, Edward Thompson, Eric Hobsbawm, And Vidoc Kirnan.
Compared with the first generation, the second generation of British Marxist scholars has both continuity and its own characteristics of the times, and the difference between the second generation and the first generation is that they combined class analysis with the tradition of British cultural research, which promoted the development and prosperity of cultural Marxism in Britain. Representative figures include Stuart Hall, Perry Anderson, Sheila Robetham, Robin Blackburn and others.
I believe that whether it is the study of Marxist historiography in Britain, or the global Marxist historical trend and its academic influence, it should be based on the historical school, the historian group and the individual historians as the research object, and the most important thing is to build on the documentary data of historical theory, and then use the time dimension as a clue to focus on their historical practice, while focusing on the source of the marxist historical theory and ideological genealogy.
On this basis, we can pay attention to the following three aspects, the first aspect is to emphasize the innovation of the Marxist historical analysis paradigm from the perspective of global intellectual history, the second is to carefully sort out the driving force and process of the intergenerational transformation of Marxist historiography, and finally, to pay attention to the research on the genealogy and influence of Marxist historical thought. We do historical theoretical research with three academic prerequisites. First of all, it is necessary to be rooted in historical materials, vigorously excavate original documents and organize research historical materials, including personal biographies and writings of historians. The second point is to pay attention to theoretical methods, and make full use of theory and construct an analytical model from the perspective of historical internal logic and historical epistemology. The third is to learn empathy and empathy, and comprehensively collect and examine the relevant archives, activity records and communication documents of historian groups.
Looking at Marxist historiography and historical trends from the perspective of global historiography, we should also pay attention to the country differences, national positions, regional distribution and influence of Marxist historiography. From the specific perspective of historical theory and practical research, focus on representative historians or historical works of some important countries and key regions. We should not only stay on European and American scholars, but also pay attention to the circulation and development of Marxist historiography in the vast regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Especially in the 20th century, the century-old historical pattern of China and the world, especially at present, we are facing an unprecedented world change, if we do historical theory and historical research, if we put this background through or combine, we will be able to find many very good research topics.
Xu Liang (Jiangxi Normal University):
The topic of my report to you today is the century-old rhetoric of Marxist historiography in the United States and its impact. American Marxist historiography is not mainstream in the field of American historiography, but it is also a very important part of national historiography. Generally speaking, the birth of American Marxist historiography was marked by the founding of the Communist Party of the United States in September 1919.
First of all, I would like to introduce the spread of Marxist theory in the United States, and the establishment of Marxist historiography in the United States is of course premised on the spread of Marxist theory in the United States. The spread of Marxist theory in the United States is bounded by 1848 and can be divided into two periods. Before 1848, the more widely influential idea in American society was the idea of utopian socialism, which in its early years relied mainly on the communist experiments of some utopian socialists in Europe in the United States. As we know Robert Owen, Fourier, and others as the representative of utopian socialism practitioners, many of them went to the United States to establish relevant communist experimental fields. In the first half of the 19th century, there were hundreds of experimental communes of various kinds of communism in the United States, and the number of people who participated in the experiments reached hundreds of thousands. To some extent, the United States at this time can be said to have become the second home of utopian socialism. In the process of establishing these communist experimental fields, the theory of socialism was spread and developed in the United States.
Robert Owen
So why was 1848 a dividing point? One sign was the publication of the Communist Manifesto, which represented the emergence of scientific socialism. There was also the European Revolution of 1848. We know that the European revolutions soon failed, and then a large number of revolutionaries went into exile in the United States. In academia, many refer to the group of exiles who fled Europe to the United States after the defeat of the revolution as "people of 1848." Some of these people brought Marxism to the United States and propagated Marxism through the newspapers they founded. Then in the 1850s and 1860s, before and after the American Civil War, Marx and Engels also began to personally express their views in some American magazines, especially using the theory of scientific socialism to analyze the social movements and major events in the United States at that time, including the Prohibition Movement, the development of the West, the anti-slavery policy of the Lincoln administration, etc., and had a certain impact on President Lincoln. In the late 19th century, the workers' movement can be said to be in full swing in the United States, and the wave of the workers' movement on the one hand gave birth to a number of works on the history of socialism and labor, such as Richard Ely's "American Labor Movement", Edwin McNeil's "The Main Problems of today - The Labor Movement", Matisse's "American Socialism", Hilquid's "History of American Socialism", etc., which laid the academic foundation for the emergence of Marxist historiography in the United States. On the other hand, in the context of the great struggle of the workers' movement, a number of political organizations or political parties inclined to socialism have been established, such as the "American Labor Federation", the "Socialist Workers' League" and the "American Social Democratic Party", which have promoted the continuous expansion of Marxism in the United States from the social level.
I will now turn to the second issue, which is the emergence and initial development of Marxist historiography in the United States. The emergence of the Communist Party of the United States in 1919 marked a new stage in the development of Marxism in the United States. A group of Marxist theorists applied Marxist theories and methods to the investigation of American historical problems through writing books and making statements, thus promoting the emergence of American Marxist historiography in the 1920s and the rapid development of the 1930s and 1940s. The research focus of American Marxist historians in this period is mainly on the history of labor, the history of the American Revolution, the history of the Civil War, the history of black people, and the history of the international labor movement. What they all have in common is that they are guided by Marxist theory, attach great importance to the historical role of the masses of the people, and attach importance to exploring some regular contents in the process of social history. Representatives include William Zeblon Foster, Herbert Aptek, Philip Fonder and others. Together, these people formed the first community of Marxist historians in the United States, most of whom were Marxists or Communists, acting as politicians and historians, and the greatest merit of their historical research was to focus their research on workers, the masses, women, blacks, and other excluded people at the bottom, in the service of the realpolitik struggles of these people at the bottom. Almost all of these Marxist historians have a pious feeling for Marxism. Therefore, it is often referred to by later historians as the "old left" of Marxist historians.
On the third question, I would like to talk about the flourishing and flourishing of Marxist historiography in the United States, mainly from the sixties to the seventies, and of course some scholars have naturally extended it to the 80s, but I think it was mainly in the sixties and seventies. The prosperity and prosperity of Marxist historiography in the United States during this period had a large international background, that is, with the end of World War II, the in-depth development of national liberation movements in Asia, Africa and Latin America, and the major victories in the anti-imperialist and anti-colonial struggles of the people of the Third World. At the same time, as the Soviet Union's national strength rose and began to carry out revolutionary exports to the world, Marxism flourished internationally. During this period, a large number of social movements also appeared in the United States, including the civil rights movement, the feminist movement, the anti-Vietnam War movement, and the youth counter-mainstream cultural movement, which provided favorable conditions for the revival and prosperity of Marxist historiography. The main feature of American Marxist historiography during this period was the coexistence of "new and old left" historians. The rise of "New Left" historians expanded the influence of Marxist historiography in academic circles, represented by William A Williams, Walter Rafiber, Eugene Genovez, Howard Zinen, and others. Compared with the First Half of the 20th Century, when Marxist historiography fought alone in the American historical arena, the development of Marxist historiography in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s showed a high-pitched and exciting momentum. At this time, there were both innovative developments in neo-Marxist historiography and the continuation of traditional Marxist historiography, and it became an academic fashion to flaunt marxism or try to use Marxist theory for historical research. Although they sometimes have different understandings of the concept of "Marxism," they all agree that Marxism is both a general theory of explaining the world and a way to change it. Adhering to the "bottom-up" view of history, they insisted on speaking for the "ordinary people" and "silent people" represented by the working class, and wrote a large number of "grassroots histories". Although some people believe that Marxist historiography still belongs to the minority of American historiography at that time, there is no doubt that the historical writing of new and old Marxist historians still played the strongest voice of American historiography in the 60s and 70s, and they jointly created a heroic era in the history of American Marxist historiography. For them, this period is undoubtedly a long and memorable period of burning passion.
Finally, I would like to talk about the new challenges and new developments facing Marxist historiography in the United States in the post-Cold War period. With the drastic changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s and the final end of the "Cold War", Marxism faced unprecedented blows and challenges. The "Marxist defeat theory" and the "final conclusion of history" advocating the final victory of Western democracy have been raging, and the upsurge of Marxist historiography that flourished in the American historical arena in the 1960s and 1970s has come to an abrupt end, and together with the socialist movement in the United States, it has fallen into an unprecedented decline. But it is precisely because of these challenges that the study of Marxist historiography in the United States has taken on a new dimension. The characteristics of American Marxist historiography in this period are influenced by interdisciplinary research methods, and Marxist historiography, like the entire American historiography, has seen a diversified development trend with social science as the core feature. In the process of cross-integration with philosophy, political science, sociology, economics and other disciplines, Marxist historiography has presented a complex and diverse cross-cultural research form, but reaffirming the importance of Marxism and using Marxist theory to analyze the new changes and new problems in Western society in the post-Cold War era is still its core concern. Nathan Rosenberg of Stanford University pointed out that the leading position in the development of science and technology has prepared the United States with the ideal conditions for realizing the principles of socialism. The failure of the socialist economy in the USSR did not prove Marx wrong, but on the contrary proved him completely correct; the Soviet Union failed to adapt scientific and technological progress and research results to the needs of the development of industry and agriculture in its own country, and the United States was in a much more advantageous position, more suitable for socialist change. David Schweicat of Loyola University and James Lawler of Buffalo University developed the concept of market socialism, arguing that socialism can only be achieved through the market. They pointed out that market socialism is not the same as capitalism, but that it is the only viable solution for the advanced capitalist countries to move towards socialism. In the face of the global ecological crisis brought about by capitalist globalization, John Foster and others at the University of Oregon proposed ecological Marxism, believing that Marx's world view is a systematic and ecological world view, and the core of Marx's ecological thought is the "metabolism" of nature and society centered on labor, which is based on materialism. On the whole, under the guidance of interdisciplinary research methods, the study of Marxist historiography in the post-Cold War era in the United States has strengthened its sense of reflection, paid attention to the nature, characteristics and destiny of socialism and capitalism, and the theoretical function of Marxism, which has a strong speculative nature. At the same time, it also attaches great importance to analyzing and solving the problems facing contemporary capitalism, especially the problems of knowledge economy, globalization, ecological crisis and market socialism, which is profoundly realistic.
The birth and development of Marxist historiography in the United States has created a large number of outstanding radical historians, broken the dull atmosphere of American conservative historiography dominating the world, opened up new fields of American historical research, enriched the theories and methods of American historical research, and effectively promoted the reform and development of American historiography. At the same time, the historical writing of Marxist historians has continuously deepened people's understanding of capitalism and promoted the fairness and justice of American society. Marxism arose in the context of the development of Western industrial society, with the criticism of capitalist society as its academic gene and the establishment of a fair and just ideal society as its lofty goal. It is precisely for this reason that American Marxist historians have always played the role of healers in the development of the history of the United States and the country.
Youdong Li (Tianjin Normal University):
The topic of today's discussion is the source and flow of Western historical theory, so combined with the experience in research and teaching, I will talk about the hidden and obvious understanding of the subject from the perspective of western historiography. From the perspective of a historian as an epistemic subject, I divide Western history into four stages: (1) in the classical period, the actual experiencer and the "third party are not present." (2) The historian of "self-surveillance" from the Renaissance to the 19th century. (3) From the second half of the 19th century to the 1970s, the relative "me" and the arbitrary "me". (4) After the 1970s, the split, heterogeneous "I".
Because in the epistemology of historiography, there has always been a discussion about the subject of knowledge, that is, who is conducting historical understanding? Therefore, when people conduct historical understanding, they will involve a series of questions: In historical understanding, do historians are allowed to maintain their own subjective consciousness? How does the real experience of the historian's life in the present affect the historian's historical understanding? Can the historian "self" who lives in the "present" still know history "truthfully" and "objectively"?
Historians of the classical era, they basically write contemporary history, the history he writes is actually his own real life, and the witness of the event is by his side. So when these scholars wrote history, they didn't have the idea of expertism, elitism, and intellectual hegemony as we understand it today. Historians describe the lives they have experienced, and this becomes the history of their writing. Herodotus also mentions the existence of "I" when writing, but from Thucydides onwards, the first-person "I" began to become invisible, including the later Caesar writing gallic war records, and this technique was skillfully used. It is through this "third party is not present" rhetoric that the ubiquitous role of the author is realized and the purpose of (objectively) convincing the reader is achieved. In this period, historians, as a subject of knowledge, experienced history and reality first-hand, and their writing basically belonged to contemporary history.
Herodotus
After the Renaissance, with the birth of the naturalist school, historians began to be no longer limited to writing only contemporary history. Instead, through the dual evidence method, historians began to jump out of the boundaries of their lives in the content of their writing, and they could study the distant past. Beginning with the double evidence method, historians have increasingly adopted a so-called scientific concept of writing: that is, history as the object of writing must maintain a certain distance from the real life of the historian himself. The author is invisible and absent in the historical narrative; In the process of writing, try to adopt a non-personal narrative. The aim is to show that the historian's research is neutral, or that the narrative has nothing to do with the historian's personal position on reality.
In the past classical era, historians relied on the actual experience of individuals as the subject of cognition to write history, but after the Renaissance, historians mainly relied on archives, and gradually developed a habit commonly known as convention, called 30 years distance. That is to say, historians write history, and generally have a 30-year interval between the historian's current life (Hayden White calls the historian's 30-year self-closure). At this stage, the historian increasingly exercised control over himself, and through this control achieved the objectivity of historical writing. But this ideal of objectivity is difficult to achieve, and in the nineteenth century it developed into the Comte problem: that is, positivism can be used to study everything, but not to study the minds of historians; Because the study of the mind requires the use of subjectivity to empathize, it is impossible to be objective, then it is not positivism.
With Dilthey's response to Comte's conundrum, the third stage is reached. From the second half of the 19th century to the 1970s, a growing number of historians reached a consensus on the epistemology of historiography that nothing happened in the process of historians from archival history to narrative editing. In the process of historians transforming archival historical materials into historical narratives, there are historians' own constructions. Especially in the wars of the nation-states, historians of different countries, based on their own national or national positions, will have completely contradictory historical cognitions. From the Franco-Prussian War to the First World War, the open debate among historians of various countries was full of the subjective understanding of historians. After the end of World War II, the impact of the atomic bomb also made people have some doubts about the objectivity of natural science.
In the 1960s, with the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War, it was found that many historians had strong racial and political biases, and people no longer believed that historians could be objective. By reconstructing the close connection between historical understanding and real life, Croce established the main position of historians in the process of historical understanding. Croce criticized the binary evidentiary method used by the Ranke school, naturalist school, or linguist, that is, the "underground + aboveground" and "literal + non-written" method of examination, arguing that this only solved the problem of whether historical knowledge was "correct". But if it doesn't resonate with real life, this approach won't solve the question of whether history is "real."
Since the 1970s, historiography has moved into postmodern themes. Postmodernism holds that all historical understanding, all archives, are actually language. Based on this view, the self-subjectivity of historians begins to be questioned. Postmodernists believe that when the author's work is finished, the author has disappeared, and even shouts out that the author is dead. In the post-truth era, when the work leaves the author's desk, it will be socialized and interpreted, and (the meaning of the work) has changed. And researchers should acknowledge that they have been constructed in specific academic discourses that constitute filters for their observation of the world and their actions. The discourse system constructs the subject of the author, and the world of the author's speech. This discourse is mainly anti-customer, and in the past it was a tool for historians to reproduce, and now it is used to produce historians. [In the relationship between the author and the reader,] people pay more and more attention to the recipient or reader, believing that once the author's work is written, the author has disappeared and began to be interpreted by society.
Under the impact of the wave of postmodernism, there is a rupture between historians' historical understanding and historians' actual experience. Historians' ability to capture real-life experiences is weakening, or their ability to use historical experience to explain or guide reality historically. As a result, when real people need to use historical narratives to construct their legitimate identity, modern Western academics are unable to provide such historical narratives. As a result, the scientific analysis of history and the understanding of narratives have all led to a crisis in historical reproduction. This is the fundamental reason for the emergence of post-truth in the discipline of history, and people have even begun to question whether collective objectivity and consensus can really be reached.
The subjectivity of historians, in the history of Western historiography, is a diachronic development process. A phase is highlighted, a phase is hidden. In the complex process of understanding of contemporary historiography, the subjectivity of historians is both revealed and allowed to be seen (such as examining evidence, academic exchanges, and social influences) and hidden places that are not easy to see (such as the process of historians constructing narratives based on fragmented evidence, such as what kind of power or ideology historians are influenced or influenced by).
The subject of the historian seems to be individual or "subjective", but it also has its objective causality. The independent narrative of the historian's subject is actually constrained by reality. First, historians should be aware of the existence of the real life in which the "self" subject itself is engaged, and second, historians should realize that there will always be "contemporaneity" and "reality" in historical understanding. Therefore, there is an interweaving of the reality of the narrative "context" and the "agency" of the historian's subject. The group of witnesses of the event, the group of historians, and the group of readers (intersubjective guarantee) are all personally involved in the "reality" and can actively tell the events they experience in the present, which is a historical reality that has preset the theme and has a certain degree of objectivity.
The materialist view of history holds that the concepts and ideas of historians as "subjects of knowledge" do not mean that they are completely "subjective." Because the consciousness of the "subject" comes from his/her experience of objective real production life, and is determined and shaped by the latter. Therefore, the so-called "subjectivity" of historians also has its objective causal relationship. Historians' seemingly "autonomous" historical narratives are always produced under specific social, cultural, political, economic, and historical constraints. For example, the current historiography of class, gender, and disposition, and the study of nations, races, and empires, which are currently concerned by contemporary Western scholars, can be explained by the revival of ethnic-nationalist nationalism in the context of globalization, the chaotic outcome of European colonial empires, the rise of post-war immigration and multiculturalism in Europe, racial and ethnic politics in the United States, and the rise of the "American Empire".
Hao Wu (Shanghai University):
The topic I want to talk about today is the cognitive and thinking process of the materialist view of history in contemporary Chinese historiography. Just now, Teacher Liang and Teacher Xu also said that Western Marxist historiography, especially British Marxist historiography and American Marxist historiography, has never become a prominent science. However, it is undeniable that Marx's materialist view of history has had a great impact on the social sciences and history of the West. Many scholars in the West have given high praise to Marx, such as Giddens, Gelshenklon, Wallerstein, and the historians of the Annals School.
Why did China's materialist view of history gradually fall silent after 1949 after experiencing several ups and downs from xianxue, and what is the reason for this phenomenon? Let's first look at the first stage, the basic theory of the materialist view of history and the cognition of historians in the first stage, from the founding of the People's Republic of China to the "Cultural Revolution". In the early days of the Chinese revolution and the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Soviet Union, as the big brother, had a very great influence on the mainland. The book that had the greatest influence on China's materialist view of history during this period was Stalin's Concise Course on the History of the United Communist Party (Brazzaville). At this time, people's materialist view of history has a dogmatic tendency, which has the following characteristics: First, from the perspective of the dynamic of the evolution of social forms, class struggle is regarded as the fundamental or real driving force of historical development. Second, in terms of the human factors behind the evolution of social forms, the masses of the people are regarded as the sole creators of history. Third, from the perspective of the path of the evolution of social forms, the theory of "five social forms" in which primitive society, slave society, feudal society, capitalist society, and socialist society strictly evolve in turn is regarded as a universal law of human social development. This is reflected in the study of history, that is, the study of the "Five Golden Flowers" from the 1950s to the eve of the Cultural Revolution. "Five Golden Flowers" refers to the problem of the periodization of ancient Chinese history, the problem of the form of feudal land ownership in China, the problem of peasant war in China's feudal society, the problem of the budding of Chinese capitalism, and the formation of the Han nationality. In the phased discussion of ancient history, the theory based at that time was that the social form was strictly in accordance with the law of the evolution of the five social forms described in the "Concise Course on the History of the United Communist Party (Brazzaville)", which held that China, like Western society, had to go through the stages of slave society and feudal society. In the discussion of the budding of capitalism, the research at that time emphasized that China already had the bud of capitalism in the late period of feudal society, and if there was no foreign aggression, it would certainly transition from feudalism to capitalist society, but foreign aggression interrupted this process. Although there were also some scholars at this time who questioned these dogmatic views, such as Mr. Lei Haizong of Nankai University, these people were criticized for this.
Time transitioned to the "Cultural Revolution" period, and the "Left" mistakes developed to the extreme. The materialist view of history, which is the theoretical guide for humanities and social science research, has been profoundly influenced by the ultra-"Left" ideological trend and the line of "taking class struggle as the program" and has been seriously distorted. First, in terms of the dynamics of the evolution of social formations, the class struggle is regarded as the only driving force for historical development. Second, from the perspective of the role of man behind the dynamics of the evolution of social forms, it is further explained that "history is created by slaves" from the perspective of "only the masses of the people are the driving force for the creation of world history.". Third, from the perspective of the evolution path of social forms, the "five social forms" evolve in strict order and are regarded as "an objective law of historical development that does not depend on the will of the people", while the class struggle of the masses of the people is regarded as the fundamental driving force for the sequential evolution of social forms after primitive society.
At the end of the 1970s, China entered a period of reform and opening up, and with the economic reform and opening up, the reflection and discussion of the materialist view of history also entered the first climax. People rethink the dynamics of historical development. First of all, the class struggle is no longer regarded as the only motive force for social development, but as a driving force for historical development, like scientific justification, ideological struggle, etc. Secondly, historians have deepened their understanding of the complexity of the dynamics of historical development, and gradually extended from the past dynamic "monism" to the dynamic "pluralism", and then put forward the "synergy" theory. Finally, historians have put forward a new thinking topic that is closely related to it--the role of people behind the driving force of historical development, and the evolution path of social forms driven by the fundamental driving force of historical development. On the question of reflecting on the creators of history, on the one hand, the position of the masses of the people as the main body of history creation has been clarified; on the other hand, the historical role of outstanding figures and even the exploiting classes has been objectively understood. Reflections on the question of the social form of historical development mainly focus on three questions: (1) the question of how the doctrine of the "five modes of production" was formed; (2) Whether the theory of the "five social forms" can reveal the universal laws of human social development; (3) On Marx's "Theory of Three Social Forms". Both interpretation frameworks further realize the universality and diversity of historical development, and actually deepen the thinking of the materialist view of history's social form theory from different aspects. Not only is the re-examination of the basic concepts by "returning to Marx", but also the "three forms" can be fully linked to the several specific modes of production mentioned by Marx. Scholars who adhere to the theory of "five social forms" have continued the thinking path of the 1980s, but at the same time, the level of thinking has been further deepened, especially the analysis of the two forms and reasons for the evolution of the five social forms, gradual and transcendent, which has further enriched the connotation and explanatory power of this theory. In the 1990s, with the great changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the enthusiasm for reflection fell into calm.
In the 21st century, historians have once again set off a climax in the discussion of the materialist view of history theory of social form. This discussion mainly focuses on three aspects: First, it is a discussion on the scientific attributes of the materialist view of history. Some people think that the theoretical orientation of the materialist view of history is the social environment, ignoring the intermediary conditions of people as social subjects and their practical activities, so its basic principles are seriously flawed; However, there are also some views that the defects of the traditional materialist view of history come from the Soviet Union's dogmatic materialist view of history, which cannot negate the scientific nature of the materialist view of history founded by Marx. The second is the discussion of the basic concepts and principles of the materialist concept of history, such as social existence, productive forces, production relations, and classes. The third is the continuation of the study of the theory of social form in the materialist view of history. Many scholars believe that the theory of the "five social forms" was not original to Marx and Engels, but was created by Stalin. They point out that the <政治经济学批判>evolution of several social formations mentioned by Marx in the Preface is only a general description of the history of Western Europe, and Marx explicitly rejects this description as a universal law of historical development. Moreover, from a practical history point of view, except for Western Europe, the theory of the "five social formations" does not apply to China and other parts of the world. However, there are still a few scholars who continue to adhere to the theory of "five social forms", believing that this theory is a universal law of human social development proposed by Marx and Engels, but as far as the specific development paths of different countries, including China, the evolution of social forms can have the particularity of "more and more successive" replacements, which depends on specific historical conditions. After the great discussion at the beginning of the century, the study of the materialist view of history fell silent again. Until around 2010, there were some new thinking on some issues, mainly the deepening of the discussion on "one-line theory" and "multi-line theory"; A re-analysis of the Eastern and Western concepts of social development; The conceptual problem of feudalism and capitalism. However, the thinking and discussion of these issues has not caused great waves in the academic community.
Why does the materialist view of history face serious challenges that are questioned and marginalized in contemporary China? First, many of the internal principles of the materialist theory of historical social form are still not thoroughly explained, and many major historical and practical problems (the new trend of capitalist development, the middle class, agrarian capitalism, the family farm mode of production as the sixth mode of production) have still not been scientifically and rationally explained according to this theory. Second, the influx of new trends of historical thought and historical views on the materialist theory of social form and the theory of history have not received convincing responses. Third, in addition to the traditional problems, the research topics and research levels of the materialist historical view of social form theory still need to be further developed and deepened.
Lu Heying (Sichuan University):
The subject I am going to talk about today is the modern transformation of German historiography. Modern German historiography refers to the mainstream German historiography of the period from the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 to the end of World War II in 1945, which is characterized by: historicism as the theoretical basis; Belongs to the specialization and professionalization of historiography; Promote the modern transformation of the historiography of various countries. Modern German historiography has existed for more than a hundred years, and according to its development, it can be divided into three stages: 1760-1860 is the stage of its modern transformation, that is, its origin and formation; 1860-1914 for its institutionalization and external dissemination; The period 1914-1945 was its decline.
Why I pay attention to the modern transformation of German historiography is mainly based on three questions: First, since the 19th century, the modern historiography of France, Britain, the United States and Japan has been formed by the influence of German modern historiography, compared with the modern transformation of German historiography, the problem of modern transformation of German historiography has always been confusing, and existing research has denied the claim that German modern historiography directly originated from Göttingen historiography, so is it a direct product of Western erudite ancient research or 18th-century Enlightenment historiography? Recent decades of research tend to answer this question in the affirmative, but in fact it is still debatable; Second, among the three stages of the development of modern german historiography, its modern transformation stage is the most worthy of separate study. In that stage of alternating old and new, multidisciplinary interaction, Enlightenment thought, the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, the Vienna system, Protestant theology, neo-humanism, Romanticism, classical philology, German classical philosophy, Göttingen historiography were all important factors contributing to the modern transformation of German historiography, and after the middle of the 19th century, as German modern historiography consolidated its disciplinary position, the influence of these factors gradually faded, and accordingly, the theoretical basis of german modern historiography. Both the political implications and the institutionalized structure have undergone fundamental changes.
Third, historical issues such as whether Ranke's early historiography was groundbreaking have been widely discussed in recent years, and most researchers tend to belittle the academic contributions of Ranke's early historiography, and it is especially necessary to study the modern transition stage of German historiography if Ranke's early historiography is to be re-evaluated.
In the history of Western scholarship, Croce's Theory and History of Historiography, Peter Lay's The Rise of the German Enlightenment and Historicism, Momigliano's On the Historiography of Antiquity and Modern Times, Herbert Butterfield's The Origin of Historiography, Anthony Graftown's Footnote History, and Donald Kelly's The Chance of History: A Historical Inquiry from Herd to Heizinha all address the origin and formation of modern German historiography. Among them, the earlier research was influenced by German historiography at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and believed that the achievements of modern German historiography were mainly manifested in research; The research of Lai, Momigliano, Graftown, and Kelly emphasizes the continuity between modern German historiography and Modern European historiography, and believes that the German modern historiography pioneered by Rank is inextricably linked to Western erudite ancient studies and Enlightenment historiography. Unlike the non-German scholars mentioned above, German or German scholars place more emphasis on the inheritance and innovation of modern German historiography itself, and the representative works of this perspective include the German-American scholar Eagles's "The University of Göttingen and the Transformation of History in 1760-1800" and Ulrich Murak's "The Science of History in Humanism and Enlightenment Thought: On the Prehistory of Historicism".
Maumiliano
Judging from the research trends in recent years, foreign academics have tried to study the modern transformation of German historiography from the perspective of postmodern narrative theory, among which Daniel Fulda's "Science out of Art: The Rise of Modern German Historical Writing (1760-1860)" and Blau's "As a Perspective of Reproduction: Rank and the Beginning of Modern Historiography" are the most representative. In addition to some Western history textbooks that deal with the relationship between modern German historiography and modern European historiography, only Liu Yaochun's "Continuation and Rupture: The Transformation of European Historiography from the Enlightenment Period to the 19th Century" and Wang Qingjia's "How Western Historiography Completed Its Modern Transformation?—— Four Aspects of Investigation", two scholars have written articles to discuss this issue.
Through research and combing, I will clarify the continuity and fracture between modern German historiography and erudite ancient studies and Enlightenment historiography. First of all, I think that modern German historiography is different from erudite and good ancient studies. Existing research emphasizes that Ranke's early historiography did not produce fundamental breakthroughs by analyzing modern European historiography and erudite ancient studies. Examination is one of the important characteristics of modern German historiography, but it is not its soul, and the involvement of modern German historiography in politics and its nationalist characteristics are completely unusable by erudite and good ancient studies. Second, I think modern German historiography is different from Enlightenment historiography. Although modern German historiography is inextricably linked to Enlightenment historiography, since Ranke published his debut book, A History of the Romans and German Peoples, German historiography has a distinctly anti-Enlightenment historicist character, and historicism can only be established against abstract Enlightenment reason. Third, modern German historiography was not born out of Göttingen historiography. Göttingen historiography was not a direct source of modern German historiography. German historiography, which was in the stage of modern transformation, aimed at pursuing "interpretation" rather than "examination", which made it very different from Göttingen historiography, which emphasized only "examination" at the methodological level.
The origin and formation of modern German historiography has its intrinsic nature. First, the origin and formation of modern German historiography is inextricably linked to multiple socio-historical factors. The rise of modern German historiography is closely linked to the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and the consequent conservative social atmosphere. The neo-humanist and Protestant atmosphere in Germany had an important influence on the rise of historicism. The founders of modern German historiography, such as Ranke and Droyson, were inspired by current events to turn to historical research. Second, the formation of modern German historiography is the product of multidisciplinary interaction. The available evidence shows that there are large differences between modern German historiography and Göttingen historiography, especially in professional backgrounds and training methods. The founders of modern German historiography, such as Rank and Droissen, were classically literate and heavily influenced by Protestant theology and German classical philosophy. Although the controversy over disciplines led historians at that time to be secretive about borrowing ideas and methods from other disciplines, it is an indisputable fact that they intercepted the resources needed by other disciplines to construct modern German historiography. It is the multidisciplinary interaction that makes modern German historiography distinct from that of France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Third, modern German historiography is specialized historiography. In the 19th century, Germany established and improved the training system of history, elaborated a systematic historical methodology, and founded professional historical journals and societies. This initiative has had a profound impact on the modern historiography of other Western countries, and also shows that modern German historiography is very different from modern European historiography.
Therefore, the modern transformation of German historiography is not a single line but a double line. Modern German historiography did not directly evolve from erudite ancient studies, Enlightenment historiography and Göttingen historiography, and the founders of Modern German Historiography such as Rank and DeRoysen were not their descendants, and in the process of European social transformation, they created a new historiography with classical philology, German classical philosophy, new humanism, and Protestant theology as theoretical resources, a professional historiography that profoundly affected the modern historiography of various countries. In this process of transformation, there is a parallel alternating process between the old and new historiography. In the Ranke era, the "old historiography" that inherited the historiography of Göttingen was still popular in Germany but gradually showed a trend of decline; In other Western countries, traditional historiography, unlike modern historiography, survived for a long time, although challenged by new historiography in the 19th century. These are some of my brief understandings of the modern transformation of German historiography, thank you!
Yang Changyun (Moderator):
Thank you to the teachers for their wonderful speeches, the content is very impressive. The five teachers described their main characteristics and latest progress from the perspectives of British Marxist historiography, American Marxist historiography, historians' epistemology, materialist view of history, and modern transformation of German historiography. From the perspective of intellectual history and historiography, Professor Liang discussed the globalization of Marxist historiography and the evolution of Western Marxist historiography. Among them, Professor Liang specifically showed the evolution of the historiography paradigm of the two generations of British Marxist historiography and their historical logic, and I think there is still a lot of room for development. When Mr. Liang talked about the second generation of Marxist historians in britain, Perry Anderson, I was very touched, and I liked his books very much during my graduate studies, and his brother Benedict Anderson was also a well-known scholar, and his masterpiece "Imagined Community" had a great influence around the world. "Imagination" is a very dangerous thing, and it is also an academic issue worthy of concern. Through The introduction of Teacher Liang, we can find that Western Marxism or Western Marxist historiography is very different from our original imagination, each country has its own research characteristics and research interests, and there is obviously a lot of room for exploration in Marxist historiography.
Professor Xu Liang introduced us to the relevant issues of American Marxist historiography. From the spread of early utopian socialism in the United States to the watershed of 1848, Marxism began to spread rapidly in the United States before and after the Civil War, and this period was also an important period of rapid growth in the United States, and a series of problems arose in the process of development that promoted the later workers' movement and the workers' resistance struggle. The formation of the Marxist historian group in the United States is closely related to the establishment of the Communist Party of the United States, and there are also some related discussions in this area, such as wang Jiafeng's article. Teacher Xu also mentioned that American Marxist historiography has a high evaluation in the outside world, but some of these Marxist historians are identified by themselves, and some of them are classified by people according to his writings, which is very interesting.
The topic of Mr. Li Youdong's report is a very new knowledge supplement for me. When I was a student, the teacher would mention subjects and objects when I talked about historical theory and introduction to historiography, such as ontology, epistemology, and methodology; There is also the understanding of subjectivity, we all feel very headaches, and we will feel the fog in the clouds until the end. Teacher Li carefully sorted out the evolution of historians' concepts of understanding the subject for us, from the classical era to the post-modern era, the views on historians' understanding of the subject are constantly changing, which is full of historical objectivity and subjectivity of the confrontation of views, which has become an eternal theme of historical discussion, which deserves our continuous attention.
The materialist view of history also belongs to Western historical theories and methods in the source. From the perspective of China's understanding of the materialist view of history, Professor Wu Hao took us to sort out the changes in the Chinese historical community's cognition of the materialist view of history from 1949 to the present. Through his narration, I learned that the study of the domestic materialist view of history has undergone an evolutionary process from climax to silence. I wonder if there will be many people who will issue such a series of questions as I do: Is Marxism outdated? Is Marxist historiography obsolete? Is the materialist view of history outdated? Teacher Wu told us that in the face of these doubts, we historians should bring the study of the materialist view of history back to the text and back to the original documents, only in this way can we correctly understand the materialist view of history or correctly use the materialist view of history for historical writing.
Teacher Lu Heying spoke very methodically, very clearly described some of his thoughts on the modern transformation of German historiography, introduced the historical inheritance and its own characteristics of modern German historiography, and I was deeply inspired after listening to it. When I was doing research on american urban history, I noticed a phenomenon: American historiography was profoundly influenced by German historiography. For example, the social history theories and methods of the German historian Jürgen Koka have gained a lot of attention in the United States, and they have also influenced my understanding of the social history of American cities. Even before The specialization of American historiography, German historical thought began to spread in the United States, such as the Romantic historian Herder and the Objectivist historian Rank. In the 19th century, a large number of Americans went to Germany to study, bringing the research methods and theories of modern German historiography to American universities, such as Harvard University, Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University, etc., which greatly promoted the specialization of American historiography and its traditional paradigm transformation.
Editor-in-Charge: Fan Zhu
Proofreader: Yan Zhang