Endymion Wilkinson Chinese History a New Manual
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Endymion wilkinson chinese history a new manual Continue A unique resource. A prerequisite for every serious student of Chinese history and culture. Victor H. Meir, Professor of Chinese Language and Literature, University of PennsylvaniaAndion Wilkinson's bestselling guide to Chinese history has long been an indispensable guide for all those interested in civilization and China's history. The third edition won the Stanislas Julien Prize in 2014. Seventeen years in the making, the new guide introduces students to different types of transferred, excavated and artifact sources from the backstory to the twenty-first century. It also examines the context in which sources have been produced, preserved and received, the research and interpretation problems associated with them, and the best, most recent secondary works and digital resources. History plays a central role in Chinese politics and culture, so special attention is paid to the strengths and weaknesses of Chinese historiography. The fifth edition of Many Sections has been rewritten and updated with more than 3,000 works added. The entire text was reset in highly contrasting fonts to facilitate reading. Since the publication of the first edition in 1998, Chinese History: The Guide has become an indispensable guide to the study of civilization and the history of China. The second edition, updated before January 2000, discusses about 4,300 primary, secondary and reference works, which is 1,500 more titles than in the first edition. Temporary coverage has been expanded to include the Republican period; added sections on non-verbal greetings, weights and measures, money and furniture; chapters on language, etymology, people, geography, chronology, war, leishu, food and Chinese world order have been carefully revised; and the item index has been expanded to include 2,500 technical terms. Chinese History: New Guide, Fifth Edition (2018) ByAndimion Porter WilkinsonCountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglishPublisherEndymion WilkinsonPublication date2018Media typePrint978-0-998883-0-9Reprevative edition: History of Imperial China: Research Guide (1973); 1st Edition: Chinese History: A Guide (1998); 2nd Edition: Chinese History: A Guide, Revised and Expanded (2000); 3rd Edition: Chinese History: New Guide (2012); 4th Edition (2015) Chinese History: A New Guide (Chinese: q國歷史新⼿册; pinyin: Jungue lìshǐ x'n shǒucè), written by Andymione Wilkinson, is an encyclopedic guide to synology and Chinese history. The New Guide lists and describes published, excavated, artifact and archival sources from the pre-21st century, as well as a new scholarship in Chinese, Japanese and Western languages. Detailed annotations evaluate reference and research tools and outline the 25 supporting disciplines required to study Chinese history. each of the 76 chapters and interspersed with short essays give encyclopedic and often witty summaries of major themes for professionals and general readers, as well as directives on the use of history and avoiding errors in thought and analysis. The new management won the 2014 Stanislas Julien Prize. 1973 1998 2000 2012 2015 Since its first appearance in the pre-release version in 1973, Wilkinson's manual is constantly printed (sold an average of 700 copies per year). During this time, it has grown from 70,000 words to its current size of 1,302 pages and more than 1.6 million words (equivalent to twelve monographs of 400 pages apiece). The author kept him informed, releasing numerous revised editions, each of which expands the scope of its activities. But perhaps the more fundamental reason for its continued success (judging by readers' comments on Amazon.com) is that the management has established itself as nothing more than an exercise in Kellencritic (a source of criticism), posing original questions and summarizing questions. Von In an interview with Carla Nappi, a China historian at the University of British Columbia, Wilkinson discussed his experience in the field and the background of the book. He became interested in China as a student at Cambridge University in the early 1960s and then spent two years teaching English in Beijing before the Cultural Revolution. He earned a doctorate from Princeton University with a dissertation on the late markets of the Tsing Dynasty and prices, but when he started teaching, he still felt unprepared. He didn't know, he recalled, that he would tell his graduate students about the zhou or Shang dynasties, which he thought his knowledge was unlikely to fill the eye bath. On a research scholarship at Harvard University, Wilkinson mentioned to John Fairbank, a senior fellow at Harvard, that he was collecting notes on Chinese history. Fairbank offered to publish them, and in due course there was a Guide to Research in 1973. Wilkinson served in Beijing as The European Union's ambassador to China from 1994 to 2001, and in his spare time turned the 1973 research manual into the first and second editions of the manual. After he retired from the EU in 2001, Harvard invited him to teach China's history, including a graduate student's seminar on synological techniques. Since then, he has worked on a new leadership commuting between Harvard and Peking University (where he was a visiting professor). In this way, he was able to make full use of the Harvard-Yenching Library as well as all the scientific resources that Beijing has to offer. A preliminary version of the manual (1973) was published by the Harvard East Asia Research Center. From 1998 to 2015, all publications were published by Harvard University's Asian Center at Harvard-Enching Institute and distributed Harvard University Press. The fourth edition was also published in Chinese and sold 11500 11500 1st year (2016-2017). Beginning with the fifth edition (2018), Wilkinson decided as an experiment in lowering the selling price of the English edition to publish it himself and distribute it exclusively on Amazon. The fifth edition was also published digitally (on the Pleco platform in November 2017). The Fifth Edition (2018) 2018 The author explains in the foreword the main goals of the Fifth Edition as an introduction: 1. Different types of transferred, excavated, archival, artifact and ecofactory first energy from the backstory to 1949 (and in some cases to this day). Accordingly, it examines the context in which these sources were obtained, preserved and obtained, as well as related research and interpretation problems; 2. auxiliary disciplines required to study Chinese history from prehistory to 1949 (and in many cases to date), including archaeology, astronomy, bibliography, chronology and calendriki, kodicology, diplomacy, epigraphy, genealogy, historical geography, historical linguistics, numismatics, onomatics, paleography, prosopography, sigilography, statistics, text criticism, topography, transcription, translation strategies and special branches of study, such as oracle-bone, bamboo books, Dunhuang Documents, Tsinghua 3. Key secondary sources on issues that are currently concentrated and disputes in Chinese historical studies; 4. Latest electronic resources for the dissemination, sorting and analysis of Chinese historical data. In addition to the four main goals, the Fifth Edition also has five auxiliary goals (5-9), the ninth of which does not appear in previous editions: 5. To provide a sense of change over time and therefore to avoid anachronistic, ahistorical interpretations of China's past. This is easy to do because the scope of the new leadership is the full scope of Chinese history, during which long-term changes are obvious. 6. Supply readers familiar with one period a springboard to others with whom they are less familiar. 7. In order to profiling the strengths and weaknesses of Chinese hisorioographic traditions, because (i) the central role played (and continues to play) is the writing of history in Chinese politics and culture and (ii) more than is usually realized, historians rely on works produced in old historiographic traditions, even if they can ask different questions and use different conceptual frameworks. 8. Provide an English translation of key Chinese terms. 9. Illustrating the instinct of Chinese publishers to censor anything they think might contradict the official party line on Chinese history. This is achieved by glued green to about 30 or so examples of censorship in the Chinese translation of the guide's manual 2016. Most censorship passages (and no attempt has been made to show them all) are in one of four categories: (i) all that may indicate that the top leaders of the CPC are less unmistakably always right. For example, in discussing political slogans, Wilkinson mentions that during a meeting with Li Xiangnyan in 1979, the Deputy Prime Minister stressed the importance of four modernizations, but could not remember more than the first three (p. 302). The paragraphs about this episode have been erased. Equally unacceptable to the censor were comparisons of CPC-era practices with those of imperial China. For example, in the discussion of flattering imperial honorary titles (zunhao 尊號) bestowed on the emperors of China during their lifetime, The author noted that Sunhao (in frightening quotes) re-emerged with the cult of personality of Mao Tse- tung at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution (it was 20 characters: 伟的导师, 伟的领袖, 伟的统帅, 伟的舵⼿ (Great Teacher, Great Leader, Grand Commander, Great Helmsman). (2) anything concerning border issues even if this meant eliminating passage from a historical source that contradicts the current CCP lines while retaining passage from the same source that supports it (page 203). Even the author's correct observation that the history of the Ming Dynasty (1745), the official history of the dynasty, places Taiwan in a section reserved for foreign countries, has been removed (p. 953); (3) anything showing Chinese people making fun of propaganda slogans (page 302); 4) any statistical assessment, which differs from the official statistics on sensitive issues, was simply suppressed. For example, the number of people who died of starvation during the Great Chinese Famine (p. 542). The contents and structure of the Fifth edition updates, expands and corrects the fourth edition (2015).