Crisis,challenge and choice: recent theoretical trends of anti-modernism and Western studies in Chinese history

During the last three decades, so-called “postism” (a Chinese non-professional, invented referent to postcolonialism, postmodernism and poststructuralism) has powerfully criticized and challenged the hegemonic ideology of the long-standing Euro–American centralism and the authoritative discourse of modernism in Western intellectual and academic circles, albeit it with various different resonances in Chinese and other non-Western societies. By tracing the trajectory of Western conceptual ideas from classical “rational” interpretations of history, this article tries to construct the inner connections and evolution between these conceptions and ways of thinking, and to summarize their impacts on and reactions from the field of Chinese historical studies. This article suggests that these new trends have definitely cast light on macro ideological and perspective concerns but have been less fruitful in concrete historical studies.     

Engineers and engineering history: problems and perspectives

In past decades, the history of engineers and engineering has seen spectacular development. Despite this, major interrogations are still left unanswered. This article examines some of these pending questions, like the type of relation that exists between engineering knowledge and practice, or the complex articulation between continuities and discontinuities that characterizes engineering history. Finally, the article proposes to focus on engineering rationality as a possible way to address some of these issues. In order to do so, engineering rationality is not to be confused with some kind of generic and abstract logic. On the contrary, it must be historicized.     

Textual context in the history of political thought and intellectual history

ABSTRACT

We can easily misread historical texts if we take ideas and passages out of their textual contexts. The resulting errors are widespread, possibly even more so than errors through reading ideas and passages out of their historical contexts. Yet the methodological literature stresses the latter and says little about the former. This paper thus theorises the idea of textual context, distinguishes three types of textual context, and asks how we uncover the right textual contexts. I distinguish four kinds of textual-context error, and offer practical tips for avoiding these errors. However, the beating heart of this paper is the history–philosophy debate: in contrast to the prevailing assumption that historical and philosophical analysis are fundamentally different, I show that a commitment to textual context, which should be entirely uncontroversial, also commits one to think philosophically.     

Constantin Frantz and the intellectual history of Bonapartism and Caesarism: a reassessment

The conservative German publicist and political theorist, Constantin Frantz (1817–1891), occupies an ambiguous place in German intellectual history. Some, such as Friedrich Meinecke, located him within the rich intellectual tradition of German federalism, highlighting his hostility to the idea of the “nation-state” and the traditions of nationalism, Realpolitik and militarism. Others, by contrast, have situated him within a long genealogy of German fascism, identifying his remarkable 1852 work, Louis Napoleon, as a kind of precursor or antecedent of twentieth-century fascist ideology. This interpretation raises broader questions about the historiography on Bonapartism and Caesarism, which has often been motivated by an interest in the intellectual origins of modern fascism. The present article supplies a reinterpretation of Frantz’s thinking about Bonapartism (Napoleonismus) and Caesarism by focusing on a much broader range of his intellectual output and by tracking the development of his view of Bonapartism’s significance between 1851 and the early 1870s. The main outcome is not just to question Frantz’s place in the “prehistory” of fascism, but also to show how deeply nineteenth-century debates about Bonapartism were connected to concerns about liberalism, democracy, nationalism and imperialism.     

Oral tradition updated: Current perspectives on gleaning history from its various forms

Vansina, Jan. Oral Tradition as History. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985. xv + 258 pp. including notes, bibliography, and index. $22.50 cloth, $7.95 paper.     

The tyranny of the definite article: Some thoughts on the art of intellectual history

This essay argues, following an insight of Burckhardt, that the philosophy of history is a ‘centaur’, and that it has a tendency to hinder rather than to encourage the practice of history. It challenges many of the presuppositions of Bevir's study, demonstrating that The Logic of the History of Ideas is not, in any meaningful sense, an historically minded work. The ‘logic’ of the essay looks to the arts, especially literature and music, as providing genuinely illuminating parallels to the discipline involved in the practice of intellectual history. History cannot be understood as a process of philosophical abstraction; pertinent examples are of its essence, and plurality is therefore central to its richly textured nature. It still has much to learn from the reflexive procedures of anthropology. By examining the idea of ‘tradition’ the essay demonstrates that ‘the past’ is never dead, and that the relationship between texts is a living process: the intellectual historian is him/herself an artist, and his/her task is no less demanding than that of the creative artist, and it is always humblingly provisional.     

The tyranny of the definite article: Some thoughts on the art of intellectual history

This essay argues, following an insight of Burckhardt, that the philosophy of history is a ‘centaur’, and that it has a tendency to hinder rather than to encourage the practice of history. It challenges many of the presuppositions of Bevir's study, demonstrating that The Logic of the History of Ideas is not, in any meaningful sense, an historically minded work. The ‘logic’ of the essay looks to the arts, especially literature and music, as providing genuinely illuminating parallels to the discipline involved in the practice of intellectual history. History cannot be understood as a process of philosophical abstraction; pertinent examples are of its essence, and plurality is therefore central to its richly textured nature. It still has much to learn from the reflexive procedures of anthropology. By examining the idea of ‘tradition’ the essay demonstrates that ‘the past’ is never dead, and that the relationship between texts is a living process: the intellectual historian is him/herself an artist, and his/her task is no less demanding than that of the creative artist, and it is always humblingly provisional.     

An overview of recent research on modern Chinese economic history

China formally adopted the policy of reform and opening up to the outside world in 1978. Since then, both economic practice and economic theory in China have undergone profound changes, and the academic study of modern Chinese economic history has been encouraged to expand its research horizons under the rubric of “liberating the mind and seeking truth in the facts”. A number of important monographs and essays have been produced and the study of modern Chinese economic history has entered a flourishing period. Current research focuses on two major topics: China's New Democratic economy and the planned economy during the period 1949–78; and, China's socialist market economy from 1978–2006. The study of these two areas shows numerous interconnections, points of comparison and causal links. The many and important lessons to be drawn from these studies both exhibit Chinese characteristics and have universal implications.