挖掘原始档案文献，重现澳门史原貌

在中葡两国史料未通过翻译为对方历史研究人员掌握之前,一本澳门史的编写不可能具有科学性和历史真实性。若不进行此项基础工作,任何澳门史似应冠以“中国澳门史”或“葡萄牙澳门史”。既然我们承认,澳门是中西文化的交汇地,那么她的500年沧桑也应由两国学者根据双方的史料来撰写。这样,才可能有一部不带定语的澳门史,即一部具有共识的澳门史问世。     

从游牧社会发现历史:清代卫拉特蒙古政治地理空间观念表象史研究

本文坚持作者长期主张的"从游牧社会发现历史"的研究路径,从表象史的角度对卫拉特蒙古在清代前期的政治地理空间观念进行探讨,从各种侧面的文献的言说缝隙中捕捉其被强势话语所遮蔽的某些微弱声音。作者认为:作为游牧民族的准噶尔人的疆域观具有自己持续强烈的思维定式,游牧社会中原始的地点漂泊不定与"非地域化"现代性不可同日而语。划定旗地在蒙古社会历史乃至整个东亚历史上具有至为深远的意义,对蒙古民族的疆域空间观念的变化具有深刻的影响。     

James Mill's treatment of religion and the History of British India

James Mill's History of British India’ (1817) played a major role in re-shaping the English policy and attitudes in India throughout the nineteenth century. This article questions the widely held view that the ‘HBI’ heralded the utilitarian justification of colonisation found for instance in John Stuart Mill's writings. It suggests that James Mill's role as a proponent of ‘utilitarian imperialism’ has been overstated, and argues that much of Mill's criticism of Indian society arose from the continuing influence of his religious education as well as from his links with a network of Presbyterian and Evangelical thinkers. It is only after his death that the colonialist views put forward in the History of British India were re-interpreted in light of his later attachment to utilitarianism.     

History and Story: Unconventional History in Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient and James A. Michener's Tales of the South Pacific

"Literary history" is a cross between conventional (scientific) history and pure fiction. The resulting hybrid provides access to history that the more conventional sort does not (in particular, a sense of the experiences of the historical actors, and the human meaning of historical events). This claim is demonstrated by an analysis of two novels about World War II, The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje, and Tales of the South Pacific by James Michener. These two very different novels in English are by writers themselves very different from each other, writers from different times, different social and political backgrounds, and different points of view. Their novels examine the effects of the Second World War and the events of 1942 on the human psyche, and suggest how human beings have always searched for the silver lining despite the devastation and devaluation of values. Both novels resist any kind of preaching, and yet the search for peace, balance, and kindness is constantly highlighted. The facts of scientific history are woven into the loom of their unconventional histories. The sense of infirmity created by the formal barriers of traditional history is eased, and new possibilities for historical understanding are unveiled.     

Review Article: Discovering New Americas

DAVID E. STANNARD. American Holocaust: Columbus and the Conquest of the New World. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Pp. xv, 358. $36.50 (CDN)

ANTHONY GRAFTON, APRIL SHELFORD, and NANCY SIRAISI. New Worlds, Ancient Texts: The Power of Tradition and the Shock of Discovery. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992. Pp. x, 282. $29.95 (US)

VALERIE I. J. FLINT. The Imaginative Landscape of Christopher Columbus. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992. Pp. xx, 233. $24.95 (US)

DJELAL KADIR. Columbus and the Ends of the Earth: Europe's Prophetic Rhetoric as Conquering Ideology. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Pp. xiv, 256. $30.00 (us).