It was the 19th-century English historian E.A. Freeman who observed that "history is past politics, and politics is present history." This statement was considered so extraordinary that it is found listed in collections of great quotations -- which is where I found it.
In China, and much earlier, however, such an observation would have seemed obvious, not only to Chinese historians but also to all those whom they were writing about. It was quite apparent that historians should appropriate the past, with all of its events and personages, for ethical and political edification.
Since antiquity, write the authors of this scholarly and serious book, "writing history has been the quintessential Chinese way of defining and shaping culture." Indeed, Etienne Balazs, contemporary historian of China, has gone so far as to say that Chinese history is "written by officials for officials."
It is this view that the authors of the present volume wish to correct. While agreeing up to a point ("this ethical usage of history included both explication and adjudication"), they want to insist upon a degree of accuracy and honesty. To be sure, they claim, apart from its utility as illustration of morality, history had its uses in political legitimation and in propaganda. These, however, were not the only uses.
Though Mencius (Meng-tsu, 372-289? B.C.) early opined that if one were to believe all that the "Shujin" -- famous classical history -- said, then it would be better not to read it at all, it should also be remembered that Confucius and his commentators thought differently.
The implication that written history was of use only for civil examinations and for propping up the official version is countered by a famous commentary to the "Confucian Annals" that praises three historians who, one by one, were put to death because they insisted on recording a story truthfully, contravening and thwarting the wishes of those in power.
There was thus, even in ancient China, "the unyielding principle of upholding the truth about the past at all costs, even to the point of accepting death with equanimity."
Chinese historiography can in fact be favorably compared with historiography anywhere. Professors Ng and Wang believe that this chronicling was a much more dynamic process than is generally thought. Historical works mapped the contours of Chinese civilization not for the sake of understanding history as disembodied and theoretical learning, but "for the pragmatic purpose of defining the culture by mirroring the past in all of its splendor and squalor."
Indeed, in many ways the Chinese example is superior. Modern historical science, on the other hand, "whose ideal goal is to let the past speak for itself, may end up silencing it."
Here then is a detailed chronology of traditional Chinese historiography from antiquity to the Qing period, one that exhibits the ingenious ways in which scholars extracted truth from events. For the authors this naturally presumes a belief in historical truth, a conviction that such a thing as truth is possible to determine.
Their account is thus refreshingly free from cynicism. Both authors are professional historians, both teach at universities, both have secure scholarly work behind them. To question the historiographic interpretation of history is not among their intentions.
Yet, modern literary scholarship would consider history a construct. It would agree with Alexis de Tocqueville, another historian who, looking at French history, says that "history is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies." Modern literary trends might even agree with Oscar Wilde's "the one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it."
Having spread out their panorama, professors Ng and Wang limn a very real history. It is, at the most, they imply, retouched. As the last page in their reassuring book iterates: "The past must be continually refashioned to fit our self-image, and the historians and historiographers in imperial China knew this well. There is no other way."
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