Remember history class when you were a student?
Stills from the movie "Truant Dragon".
In class, they silently write down the timetable of dynasties, count the political, economic, and cultural changes of each dynasty, and repeatedly recite the time, place, and people of major historical events...... Memorize textbooks backwards for exams, and we used to think that this was what "history" was all about.
Remember the names of many of the bestsellers in history?
"Detailed Explanation of XX History", "The Fall of XX Empire", "XX History Millennium", ...... We used to think that such a grand narrative was the only way we could look at "history".
Until 2023, a historical word has entered the public eye and quickly swept all major media and social platforms in a short period of time, that is, "microhistory".
Along with it, it is also known to people as the name of "Historian Wang Di".
Major media reports on Wang Di
After more than 30 years of deep cultivation of micro-historiography, historian Wang Di has been seen by more people in the past year.
In a speech, Wang Di pointed out that the tradition of Chinese historiography is that "when studying heaven and man, the changes of the past and the present" in the "Records of the Historians", we are used to paying attention to major historical events. So, what about the ordinary people in history?
In "Thirteen Invitations", Wang Di said: Historians should not only immerse themselves in grand narratives, but also see individual "people".
Some people may ask, what is the value of ordinary people's history, and what is there to see?
In Wang Di's view, microhistory is to explore the turning point of the big era from the "small history" of ordinary people's flesh and blood. The daily work of every ordinary person is the driving force for the inheritance of civilization. Without a microscopic perspective, our history is an unbalanced history, an incomplete history.
There is no question of which is more important than the other. The two kinds of historical thinking are like the two eyes of a person, and only by opening our eyes can we see the whole picture of history.
Since 1980, Wang Di has been regarded by more and more people as "the first person in Chinese microhistory" because of his microscopic perspective and continuous biography of Chinese society and ordinary people.