William of Malmesbury and fortuna

The great Benedictine historian William of Malmesbury has divided scholarly interpretation over recent decades. For some, William was a precocious scholarly talent who steered around or subverted the constraining absurdities of the providential orthodoxy. For others, his explicit expressions of faith in God’s providence, despite its often vexatious reverses, betray a sincere piety and reverence for the hidden justice of divine cosmic rationality. These conclusions have relied on flawed assessments of William’s use of the term fortuna, fortune. They adhere to a broader status quo that imagines all medieval thinkers took for granted that fortune’s reverses were inscrutable and inevitable. On the contrary, this article argues that William was concerned with determining the precise causes of fortune, so that he might prescribe ethical advice to prevent its reverses. This has consequences for understanding the ends of twelfth-century historical writing and the development of thought pertaining to individual and collective punishments.     

New Historiography for the cultivation of the character of the “new citizen”: Liang Qichao’s ideas of history education and their practice

ABSTRACT

An advocate for modern Chinese historiography, Liang Qichao’s “new historiography” was ideologically quite closely tied to traditional Confucian historiography: his idea of “historiography” was both a form of scholarship for the provision of knowledge, as well as a type of learning for the cultivation of moral character. The fundamental objective of “new historiography” was to use the history of national development and evolution to educate the people, helping them to become nationally conscious “citizens.” However, according to Liang Qichao’s conception of history, the nationalist aspect of “new historiography” ultimately rested in the cultivation of individual character, not in imparting the concept of nationhood. During the movement to “systematize national heritage,” in his practicing of historiography, Liang primarily studied and compiled Chinese academic and intellectual histories, focusing particularly on Confucian history: he interpreted Confucianism and the cream of Chinese scholarship as a kind of “philosophy of life.” Liang’s historiographical practices eventually took shape as a form of moral education to cultivate the leading talents of society when the country was going through a transformation, while in the process signaling his profound repudiation of the empirical emphasis in historical research of the times.     

Predicament and responses: Discussions of history education in early modern China

ABSTRACT

Since the early modern era, following the abolishment of the imperial civil service exam and the rise of modern schools, the subject of history was included in education at all levels, from primary to tertiary. However, in comparison with traditional society, the degree of attention devoted to historical knowledge has in fact declined rather than improved. In the 1920s, many contemporaries vocally criticized and pondered the low level of historical knowledge among primary and secondary school students, and occasionally voiced dissatisfaction with history education at the university level as well. Critics primarily focused their discussions on the insufficient attention for history classes, imperfect standards formulated for history classes, poor history teaching materials, and lack of qualified, specialized teachers, forming a universal consensus among contemporaries on the failure of history education. However, the widespread opprobrium attached to history education was closely tied to two facts: first, the historians of early modern China had as yet failed to compile a general history of China acceptable to the majority, greatly disappointing many educators; second, historical resources failed to exercise the mobilizing effect on early modern Chinese society that contemporaries had hoped for, and history thus often became the scapegoat paying the price for practical setbacks and failures in the political arena.     

Who Sank the Battleship Bouvet on 18 March 1915? The Problems of Imported Historiography in Turkey*

This article traces how differing perspectives on the sinking of the French battleship Bouvet ultimately denied the Ottoman artillery credit for the success. The official British account would attribute the defeat to ‘floating mines’ and to the ‘luck’ of the Turks in March 1915 first, and later to the Nusret’s minefield when they published their official history in 1921. Following the Great War and the occupation of Istanbul, the Ottoman officers who participated in the naval operations revised their own accounts and imported the British official narrative of the event. In understanding this overlooked case using newly disclosed Ottoman and German accounts, we can analyse how the losers’ historiography is vulnerable to overt influence from the victors’ hegemonic official historiography.     

柳诒徵论中国传统史学的治史原则与方法

柳诒徵作为中国现代文化保守主义史学大师结合西方新史学思想,对中国传统史学做了大量阐述。他对中国传统治史原则和方法的阐述尤为丰富和精深,主要包括五方面:一、"治史之必本于德"的原则;二、国史书写的道德评判准则;三、史识与史德、史法的关系和治史重在求取史识;四、注重史事普遍联系的史学记载和表述;五、正确看待考据在治史中的地位和作用。这些史学思想体现了柳诒徵史学通贯古今和兼融中西的基本特征。     

In the lure of Geistesgeschichte: the theme of decline in Hungarian historiography and historical thinking in the first half of the twentieth century

Decline was the fundamental issue in Hungarian historiography and historical thinking between the two world wars. This article primarily analyses the views of historian Gyula Szekf?, the writers and essayists Dezs? Szabó and László Németh, and those of philosophers Lajos Fülep and György Lukács. In this period, the so-called spiritual history (Geistesgeschichte) prevailed in Hungarian intellectual circles, in which the themes of decline and even fall were fundamental. Of the most important representatives of Geistesgeschichte, Spengler, Ortega, Huizinga, Croce and Maritain had significant influence on the authors mentioned above. Historians were ready to reject the ideas of these thinkers regarding the criticism of culture, and rather followed the power- and state-centred streams of Geistesgeschichte, conceived by Ranke, Troeltsch and Meinecke. At the same time it is also true that the decline and generation theory developed by the historian Gyula Szekf? (e.g., in his book Three Generations), is one of the most original interpretations of modern Hungarian history. It was shared by many Hungarian intellectuals of the period. Paradoxically, the theme of decline also appeared in the views of the so-called ‘Századok’ (Centuries) circle, mainly in the writings of the historians István Hajnal and István Szabó. They rather followed the social-history-oriented French Annales School, and even attempted to offer a solution to the problems of the so-called ‘third way’ alternative. Almost all of the above-mentioned concepts were tied in the later political discourse to the so-called right-wing tradition of Hungarian political–historical thinking, but the author also touches briefly upon the notion of decline in the leftist (Marxist) tradition of György Lukács, whose ideas had an impact on the beginnings of the Frankfurt School. The article also offers a brief overview of the main ideas of spiritual history/Geistesgeschichte, since the author suggests that this was a common feature in all the interpretations of decline in the period treated here.     

THE 2013 ANTIPODE RGS‐IBG LECTURE New Materialisms and Neoliberal Natures

The rise of non‐deterministic understandings of nature, with their emphasis on intensive difference and non‐linear processes, has occurred in conjunction with the neoliberalization of environmental governance, which at once emphasizes and financializes the inherent productivity of nature. This paper accepts the position that there is a link between the two, but argues that if we are to maintain a crucial ontological distinction between capital and non‐capital, this link must be understood as contingent rather than necessary. Drawing upon Deleuze and Guattari's concept of “universal history”, I argue that the neoliberalization of nature must be understood, in part, as the strategic containment of the critical energies of new materialist thought, and that the role of critical historiography is to recognize within processes of containment the contents and qualities of more radical possibilities. If such critical efforts are to succeed they must continually distinguish between nature's innovative force and the mechanisms that seek to capture this force in the service of capital and state. In turn, if we are to remember the radical potential of these ideas, the neoliberalization of nature must be understood as a response to these critical energies, and not their origin.     

FROM REVOLUTION TO MODERNIZATION: THE PARADIGMATIC TRANSITION IN CHINESE HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE REFORM ERA

Chinese historiography of modern China in the 1980s and 1990s underwent a paradigmatic transition: in place of the traditional revolutionary historiography that bases its analyses on Marxist methodologies and highlights rebellions and revolutions as the overarching themes in modern Chinese history, the emerging modernization paradigm builds its conceptual framework on borrowed modernization theory and foregrounds top‐down, incremental reforms as the main force propelling China's evolution to modernity. This article scrutinizes the origins of the new paradigm in the context of a burgeoning modernization discourse in reform‐era China. It further examines the fundamental divides between the two types of historiography in their respective constructions of master narratives and their different approaches to representing historical events in modern China. Behind the prevalence of the modernization paradigm in Chinese historiography is Chinese historians' unchanged commitment to serving present political needs by interpreting the past.     

改革开放以来的明史研究

改革开放以来,明史研究出现了前所未有的大发展大繁荣局面。这首先表现为研究队伍日益扩大,论著数量空前增加。其次是思想解放不断深化、认识水平不断提高,对皇权政治、农民战争等一系列历史问题的评价变得越来越理性和客观。再次是研究方法日益多样,研究领域日益拓展,史学观念、问题意识和研究取向发生了深刻变化。其中社会史的兴起尤其值得关注,不仅开辟了新的研究领域,对传统的政治史、经济史、思想文化研究也产生了深刻的渗透和影响。尽管明史研究形势喜人,成就巨大,但也存在一些不足和缺陷,如选题重复、内容肤浅、对国内外研究状况不够了解等。     

史学话语权与20世纪的中国民族史学——兼说10卷本《中国史学思想通史》

20世纪中国社会发生变动,受到西方学术思潮的影响,中国史学进入到近代化时期.西方学术话语处在强势地位,在这样的大背景下,近代史学理论、思想的争论,基本是按照西方的史学理论的热点而展开,也随着西方史学理论的热点的变动而变动.这对扩大研究视野、深化相关的史学认识有一定的意义,但另一面是,民族史学的重要思想失去应有的地位.传统民族史学思想、理论具有重要的价值,是西方史学理论不能完全替代的;民族史学话语权的失落,对于中国史学发展是不利的.进入到21世纪,史学理论发展不能忽视中国民族史学思想的研究".认真总结民族史学思想遗产,对于当代史学具有重大的意义,是振兴民族史学的重要工作,也是民族史学走向世界的基本要求.