《四库全书》研究的回顾与思考

作为古代典籍和传统文化渊薮的《四库全书》 ,在中国学术文化史上有极高的地位 ,对《四库全书》的研究和利用 2 0 0余年间盛行不衰。当前更应加强对《四库全书》的研究 ,使其在中华民族复兴的历史进程中发挥更大的作用。本文分六个专题 ,系统地评述了《四库全书》研究的历史和现状 ,对如何进一步深入研究《四库全书》提出了自己的看法和见解。     

The Fate of Jewish Historiography after the Bible: A New Interpretation

What caused the eventual decline in later Jewish history of the vibrant historiographical tradition of the biblical period? In contrast to the plethora of historical writings composed during the biblical period, the rabbis of the early common era apparently were not interested in writing history, and when they did relate to historical events they often introduced mythical and unrealistic elements into their writings. Scholars have offered various explanations for this phenomenon; a central goal of this article is to locate these explanations within both the immediate historical setting of Roman Palestine and the overarching cultural atmosphere of the Greco‐Roman Near East. In particular, I suggest that the largely ahistorical approach of the rabbis functioned as a local Jewish counterpart to the widespread classicizing tendencies of a contemporary Greek intellectual movement, the Second Sophistic. In both cases, eastern communities, whose political aspirations were stifled under Roman rule, sought to express their cognitive and spiritual identities by focusing on a glorious and idealized past rather than on contemporary history. Interestingly, the apparent lack of rabbinic interest in historiography is not limited to the early rabbinic period. Throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, Jews essentially did not write their political, diplomatic, or military history. Instead, Jews composed “traditional historiography” which included various types of literary genres among which the rabbinic “chain of transmission” was the most important. The chain of transmission reconstructs (or fabricates) the links that connect later rabbinic sages with their predecessors. Robert Bonfil has noted the similarity between this rabbinic project and contemporary church histories. Adding a diachronic dimension to Bonfil's comparison, I suggest that rabbinic chains of transmission and church histories are not similar though entirely independent phenomena, but rather their shared project actually derives from a common origin, the Hellenistic succession list. The succession list literary genre, which sketches the history of an intellectual discipline, apparently thrived during the Second Sophistic and diffused then into both rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity. Thus, even though historiography was not terribly important to the early rabbis or to most Second Sophistic intellectuals, the succession list schematic, or the history of an intellectual discipline, was evaluated differently. Rabbis and early Christians absorbed the succession list from Second Sophistic culture and then continued to employ this historiographical genre for many centuries to come.     

Diffusion in the Studies of the African Past: Reflections From New Archaeological Findings

Diffusionist theories have often been invoked to explain how ancient African cultures were formed and developed. Explanations were either in terms of waves of migrations or by infiltration by people of less African origin or people alleged to have had a high culture. This article provides new evidence for a Neolithic cultural sequence on the islands and coast of East Africa. It proposes that archaeological cultural horizons such as these should be re-examined using a revised diffusionist theory. On this basis, it can be shown that the people who were smelting iron in Sub-Saharan Africa around the first century a.d. were not marauding communities of Bantu peoples with no inclination to settle and build up empires, but of people who were well settled, and had a long history of building stable settlements and trading from Neolithic times.     

Reinhold Niebuhr and the US War on Terror: A Response to Dr Gilkey

Abstract

Building upon Langdon Gilkey's reflection on Reinhold Niebuhr's Moral Man and Immoral Society, this article examines Niebuhr's enduring contribution in relation to two pressing international concerns: religious terrorism and the US War on Terror. As these two issues are characterized by their suppression of reason, I argue that Niebuhr's critical understanding of reason, a human rational capacity to consider interests other than one's own, offers an important resource in rectifying the disorder created by the two issues. Despite his stringent critique of a liberal idealistic view of reason, Niebuhr refused to completely deny the value of reason; although reason is always tainted by sin, it is not entirely ineffectual. This critical notion of reason is a necessary antidote to the unilateralism of the Bush administration and religious fundamentalism which altogether reject a dialogical, reflective value of reason. In an increasingly interdependent global society, a critical use of reason is indispensable for the achievement of global peace and justice.     

名实·政治·人事——关于民初上海商人团体史研究的几点思考

一、前言在近代中国历史上,上海商人团体有着非同寻常的意义,此点尤以民国初年表现最为显著。辛亥以降的动荡时局中,上海工商界,特别是其中的一些团体或者人物,因其背后潜在的经济力以及广泛的社会网络、与政界关系等而为各方注意。无论是政治人物还是财经专家,甚至外交代表、文化领袖,均曾经将目光投射于上海商人团体,希望这些团体能够提供他们所需要的支持。各界对上海商人团体的评价也曾经因为时势及利益的考量,而出现富有趣味的变化。     

反思与前瞻:中国近代社会史研究的再出发

中国近代社会史复兴四十多年来,成绩令人瞩目。与此同时,日益突出的新老问题,比如近代社会史的贯通性问题、思想理论缺失问题、宏观研究不足问题、区域的代表性问题、脱离时代中心话题的问题,以及过度恋慕地方文献的问题等,正在成为困囿社会史继续前进的桎梏,应当引起学界重视。当前社会史处在与时代同步伐的关键节点上,从事近代社会史的学人十分有必要秉持“长时段”“总体史”和“整体史”的史观,重新审视这些问题,思考探索近代社会史研究再出发的诸种可能性。     

国史研究是构建和谐文化价值取向的基础——关于开发国史研究资源的思考

和谐是社会主义社会的本质属性,即社会主义社会是民主法治、公平正义、诚信友爱、充满活力、安定有序、人与自然和谐相处的社会。和谐社会的构建,不仅需要雄厚的物质基础、可靠的政治保障,也需要强大的文化力量和良好的文化氛围。《中共中央关于构建社会主义和     

Aid and the Geopolitics of the Post‐Colonial: Critical Reflections on New Labour’s Overseas Development Strategy

In the post Cold War era, issues of poverty, inequality and social exclusion have become central to many of the key discussions of international relations and development aid. In this context, this article sets out to analyse the nature and specificity of the development strategy of the New Labour government in Britain, as it has evolved since 1997. In the setting of the literatures on post‐colonialism, aid and development, the authors examine the specific concepts and approaches that help to frame such a strategy, giving particular attention to the commonalities and divergences between the British Government’s 1997 and 2000 White Papers. The perspective used connects ideas and issues from domains of knowledge which tend to remain independent of each other, namely aid and development studies and post‐colonial theory. Situated on the terrain of aid and development, the guiding objective of the article is to raise certain questions concerning power, knowledge and geopolitics, so that a wider conceptual and policy‐oriented debate might be engendered.