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The Neo-Traditional Period (ca. 800–1900) in Chinese History: A Note in Memory of the Late Professor Lei Hai-tsung*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

James T. C. Liu
James T. C. Liu
Affiliation:
Stanford University
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Extract

Most periodization schemes of Chinese history would note the significance of a “great divide.” It may be placed before the T'ang period, considering from ethnological as well as cultural standpoints such factors as the first major influx of non-Han conquering groups, the march toward the sub-tropics, the penetration of Buddhism, and so forth. It may be placed much later, around 800 A. D. or after, roughly from the late T'ang to the early Sung, noting the general characteristics of the society and fundamental changes that shaped die political and socio-economic structures of subsequent centuries. Even the Marxist view or revisionist interpretations thereof would not dispute the importance of such changes.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , November 1964 , pp. 105 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1964

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References

1 The writer is indebted to Professor John Meskill of Barnard College, who is editing a volume on the periodization of Chinese history for the series of Problems in East Asian Civilizations (D. C. Heath, forthcoming). References here would hardly be necessary. However, it might be of some help to trace the trend in twentieth century Chinese historiography as follows: Liang Ch'i-ch'ao, “A Preface to Chinese History,” in Yin-ping-shih ho-chi, III; Shih-nien, Fu, Fu Meng-cheng wen-chi, I, 54–61Google Scholar (an article originally published in 1918); Hu Shih, see below; Lei Hai-tsung, see below; and more recently, Ts'ung-wu, Yao, Tungpei shih lun-tśung (Taipei, 1962), I, 54–61Google Scholar.

2 Hisayuki, Miyakawa, “An Outline of the Naitō Hypothesis and Its Effects on Japanese Studies of China,” FEQ XIV (1954–55), 533–552Google Scholar.

3 Among Hu Shih's many writings, see the following: his article in Symposium on Chinese Culture, ed. Sophia H. Chen Zen (1931), pp. 31–58; “Authority and Freedom in the Ancient Asian World,” in Man's Right to Knowledge (200th anniversary Columbia University symposium, 1954), pp. 40–45; and “The Chinese Tradition and the Future,”Sino-American Conference on International Cooperation, Seattle, Reports and Proceedings(1962), pp. 13–22Google Scholar.

4 Reischauer, E. O. and Fairbank, John K., East Asia, the Great Tradition (1961), I: 183–185Google Scholar. The writer wishes to acknowledge the encouragement given him by Professor Fairbank in preparing this note.

5 Paraphrased from Charles O. Hucker, Chinese History, a Bibliographic Review (1958), p. 7.

6 Reischauer and Fairbank, East Asia, I: 183.

7 Hai-tsung, Le, “Tuan-tai wen-t'i yü Chung-kuo li-shih ti fen-ch'i” [“The problem of periodization and the periods in Chinese history”], She-hui k'o-hsüeh (Tsinghua University) II (1936), No. 1Google Scholar; and “Periodization: Chinese History and World History,” Chinese Social and Political Science Review XX (1936–37), 461–491Google Scholar.

8 Kracke, E. A. Jr., “Sung Society: Change within Tradition,” FEQ XIV (1954–55), 479–488Google Scholar. See Also Liu, James T. C., “Jūkyo kok'a no sōjū seikaku” [“The dual nature of the Confucian state”] Tōhōgaku XX (1961), 119–125Google Scholar.