Translated works proliferated

Since 1998, with the rapid development of studies on Chinese modern history, translation of overseas researches proliferated, among which the book series Overseas China Studies published by Jiangsu People’s Publishing House made a significant contribution to introducing overseas studies, thereby enjoyed a great reputation; the best parts of it have been reprinted for a couple of times. Among them, major translated works are: Benjamin A. Elman’s Classicism, Politics, and Kinship & The Chang-Chou School of New Test Confucianism in Late Imperial China (1998), Bin Wong’s China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience (1998), Frank Dikotter’s The Discourse of Race in Modern China (1999), Romon H. Myers’ The Chinese Peasant Economy (1999), Kwith R. Schoppa’s The Blood Road: The Mystery of Shen Dingyi in Revolutionary China (1999), Paul A. Cohen’s History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth (2000), Martin C.Yang’s Chinese Village: Taitou, Shantung Province (2001), Marston Anderson’s Limits of Realism: Chinese Fiction in the Revolutionary Period (2001), Elizabeth J. Perry’s Shanghai on Strike: The Politics of Chinese Labor (2001), Gail B. Hershatter’s Dangerous Pleasure: Prostitution and Modernity in Twentieth-Century Shanghai (2003), Yu Ying-shih’s Traditional Chinese Thought and Its Present Day Transformation (2003), Kenneth Pomeranz’s The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (2004), Ellen R. Judd’s Gender and Power in Rural North China (2004), David L. Hall’s The Democracy of the Dead: Dewey, Confucius, and the Hope for Democracy in China (2004), Shimada Kenji’s Frustration of Chinese Modern Thinking (2005), Owen Lattimore’s Inner Asian Frontiers of China (2005), Arif Dirlik’s Revolution and History: The Origins of Marxist Historiography in China, 1919-1937 (2005), Takeshi Hamashita’s China’s Modern Economic

History: Customs Finance and Markets of Treaty Ports in the Late Qing Dynasty (2006), Francesa Bray’s Technology and Gender: Fabrics of Power in Late Imperial China (2006), William C. Kirby’s Germany and Republican China (2006), Han Min’s Social Change and Continuity in a Village in Northern Anhui, China: A Response to Revolution and Reform (2007), Zhang Ying-Jin’s The City in Modern Chinese Literature & Film: Configurations of Space, Time, and Gender (2007), Shih Shu-mei’s The Lure of the Modern: Writing Modernism in Semicolonial China, 1917-1937 (2007), Ruth Rogaski’s Hygienic Modernity: Meanings of Health and Disease in Treaty-Port China (2007), Frank Dikotter’s Crime, Punishment, and the Prison in Modern China (2008), Wang Guan-hua’s In Search of Justice: The 1905-1906 Chinese Anti-American Boycott (2008), Lloyd E. Eastman’s Seeds of Destruction: Nationalist China in War and Revolution, 1937-1949 (2009), Linda Grove’s A Chinese Economic Revolution: Rural Entrepreneurship in the Twentieth Century (State & Society in East Asia) (2009), Dorothy Ko’s Cinderella’s Sisters: A Revisionist History of Footbinding (2009), and Hu Ying’s Tales of Translation: Composing the New Woman in China, 1898-1918 (2009).

China Social Sciences Press published Translation Series of Chinese Modern History, including the translated works of Mary C. Wright’s The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism: The T’ung-Chih Restoration (2002), Kenneth E. Folsom’s Friends, Guests, and Colleagues: The Mu-fu System in the Late Ch'ing Period (2002), Richard J. Smith’s Mercenaries and Mandarins: The Ever-Victorious Army in nineteenth century China (2003), Aron Shai’s The Fate of British and French Firms in China, 1949-54: Imperialism Imprisoned (2004), and Kubo Torus The Road to Self-Reliance: China’s Tariff Currency Policy and Economic Development Between the Two World Wars (2004).

The most influential translation collection in the 21st century is Translation Series compiled by National Committee of Qing History Compilation, which stated its compiling principle in the preface as: “It is the consensus of the majority of historians to adopt a world view in compiling the Qing history. It is necessary to explore the Qing history in the category of world history as well as taking the development of Chinese history into account. Therefore, we compiled the Translation Series to introduce foreign researches on Qing history”. The series included a number of translated research works concerning the history of the late Qing Dynasty, such as, Gabriel de Magalhaens’s A New History of The Empire of China (published by Elephant Press in 2004), Louis le Comte’s Nouveau mémoire sur l’état présent de la Chine (published by Elephant Press in 2004), Robert Hart’s These From the Land of Sinim (published by Tianjin Ancient Books Publishing House in 2005), Klaus Muehlhahn’s Herrschaft und Widerstand in der “Musterkolonie” Kiautschou: Interaktionen zwischen China and Deutschland, 1897-1914 (published by Shandong University Press in 2005), William T. Rowe’s Hankow: Commerce and Society in a Chinese City, 1796-1889 (published by China Renmin University Press in 2005), Richard Timothy’s Forty-five Years in China: Reminiscences (published by Yianjin People’s Publishing House in 2005), Dugald Christie’s Thirty years

Translating overseas studies 239 in Moukden, 1883-1913, Being the experiences and recollections of Dugald Christie, C. M. G. (published by Hubei People’s Publishing House in 2007), Kunihiko Sato’s The Origin and Movement of the Boxers (published by China Social Science Press in 2007), Japan-China Relations in the Early Meji Period (published by Fujian People’s Publishing House in 2007), Nikola Adolatsky’s History of Eastern Orthodoxy in China (published by Guangdong People’s Publishing House in 2007), James L. Hevia’s English Lessons: the Pedagogy of Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century China (published by Social Sciences Academic Press in 2007), Tommy Bengtsson’s Life under Pressure: Mortality and Living Standards in Europe and Asia, 1700-1900 (published by Social Sciences Academic Press in 2007), William Edgar Geil’s Eighteen Capitals of China (published by Shandong Pictorial Publishing House in 2008), William Edgar Geil’s A Yankee on the Yangtze (published by Shandong Pictorial Publishing House in 2008), William T. Rowe’s Hankow: Conflict and Community in a Chinese City, 1796-1895 (published by China Renmin University Press in 2008), Akira Morita’s Water Conservancy and Regional Society in the Qing Dynasty (published by Shandong Pictorial Publishing House in 2008), Wang Yeh-Chien’s Land Taxation in Imperia! China, 17SO-1911 (published by People’s Publishing House in 2008), and Evelyn S. Rawski’s The Last Emperors: A Social History of Qing Imperial Institutions (published by China Renmin University Press in 2009).

The National Committee of Qing History Compilation also founded the journal Translation of Qing History in 2004, which aimed to provide the committee and researchers with edited or translated research literature, including catalogues, abstracts, excerpts or full translation of relevant literature archives and research results, so as to facilitate the committee’s major task of compilation of Qing history. Columns of the journal range from special studies, selection of monographs and other research literature, academic review, interviews, overseas manuscripts, theoretic content, excerpts on arguments, latest book reviews and so forth, covering such contents as: (1) introduction and translation of foreign research literature concerning the Qing Dynasty; (2) abstract or full translation of significant academic papers on Qing history; (3) introduction, review and selected translation of foreign monographs on Qing history; (4) introduction of academic trends of overseas studies on Qing history, including research institutions, researchers, seminars and research summaries. Up to January of 2008, seven series of Translation of Q'ⁿg History had been published, and papers and research literature published on it are practically on Chinese modern history, which to some extent remedied the suspension of the journal Overseas Studies on Chinese Modern History.

After 30 years of reform and opening up, domestic studies on the AntiJapanese War achieved abundant research results, and at the same time, an increasing number of overseas studies are translated and published.

Japanese atrocities have always been a focus of Chinese researchers. In recent years, while collecting historical data and recording testimony of surviving victims, scholars in Mainland China also translated a number of foreign studies, among which, John Rabe’s The Diaries of John Rabe (published by Jiangsu People’s Publishing House in 1997) and Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking (published by The Oriental Press in 1998) are the most influential ones. The former is the record of John Rabe, chairman of the Nanjing Security Zone at that time. As a German citizen (ally of the Japanese) and member of the Nazi party, Rabe’s record is extremely convincing. The latter book made a comprehensive review of the Nanjing Massacre, which is the first detailed record of the Nanjing Massacre in all English-speaking countries, and whose translation and publication shocked both the Mainland China and all Chinese people throughout the world.

Translations of the Nanjing Massacre and other atrocities of the Japanese army are published one after another, mainly including Acuma Shiro's Diary (published by Jiangsu Education Press in 1999), Minnie Vautrin’s Diary (published by Jiangsu People’s Publishing House in 2000), Noda Masaaki’s War Crimes: A Japanese Scholar's Investigation of Soldiers Invading China (published by Guangxi Normal University Press in 2000), Sheldon H. Harris’s Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare 1932-45 (published by Shanghai People’s Publishing House in 2000), Higashinakano Syudo’s Comprehensive Verification of the Nanjing Massacre (published by Xinhua Publishing House in 2000), Honda Katsuichi’s Interview of the Nanjing Massacre (published by Beiyue Literature and Art Publishing House in 2001), Matsumura Toshio’s Remaining Questions About the Nanjing Massacre (published by Xinhua Publishing House in 2001), Inoue Hareki’s Lushun Massacre (published by Dalian Press in 2001), Morimura Seiichi’s Devil’s Satisfaction: Disclosure of Japanese Bacterial Warfare Forces (published by Academy Press in 2003), Dan Winn’s The Supreme Holocaust in China (published by Peking University Press in 2005) and Mizuno Akira’s Japanese Army's Invasion and Tyranny on Hainan Island (published by Nanhai Publishing House in 2005), and so forth.

Due to historical and practical reasons, Sino-Japanese relations is still one of the most significant bilateral issues, consequently, the study of the history of Sino-Japanese relations is undoubtedly one of the hotspots, and major translated works of this kind are listed as follows: Vasco Martins Morgado’s A Guerra Vista de Cantao (published by Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press in 2000), Honmura Hideo’s Days Before Japanese Defeat in China (published by Jiangsu Ancient Book Publishing House in

2001), Eguchi Keiichi’s History of Japanese Imperialism: Centering on the War of Aggression in China (published by World Affairs Press in 2002), Sherman Cochran’s Encountering Chinese Networks: Western, Japanese and Chinese Corporations in China, 1880-1937 (published by Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Press in 2002), Herbert P. Bix’s Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (published by Xinhua Publishing House in 2004), Kato Katsuko’s Woe to the Japanese-Chinese War: A Journey to Father's Memory (published by China Radio and Television Publishing House in

2004), Mizunaka Haruki’s Truth of Japanese’s Founding University in China (published by Kunlun Publishing House in 2004), Parks M. Coble’s Facing Japan: Chinese Politics and Japanese Imperialism, 1931-1937 (published by Social Sciences Academy Press in 2004), Yoda Yoshiie’s A Comparative Study on the Modernization of Japan and China (published by Shanghai Far East Publishing House in 2004), Takeuchi Minori’s Sino-Japanese Relations (published by China Federation of Literary and Art Circles Publishing Corporation in 2004), and Nakatsuka Akira’s Restoring the Historical Truth: How did the Heinigo War Occur? (published by Tianjin Ancient Books Publishing House in 2004).

Major translated works concerning other contents during the AntiJapanese War are: Claire Lee Chennault’s Flying Tiger General Chennault (published by Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House in 1998), James Munro Bertram’s Beneath the Shadow: a New Zealander in the Far East, 1939-46 (published by China Peace Publishing House in 2001), Yoda Yoshiie’s Japanese Imperialism (published by Shanghai Far East Publishing House in 2004) and Historical Issues in Modern Japan (published by Shanghai Far East Publishing House in 2004), Noda Masaaki’s War and Crime (published by Kunlun Press in 2004), William Kenning’s Over the Hump (published by Liaoning Education Press in 2005), Maeda Tetsuo’s From Chongqing to London, Tokyo, Hiroshima: Strategic Bombing During the World War II (published by Zhonghua Book Company in 2007).

Translation and publication of research monographs on historical figures made remarkable progress during this period. Political figures represented by Mao Tse-tung and significant figures in various fields received translators’ attention.

The most widely translated and published studies are on Mao Tse-tung, and among them the most influential one is Translation Series of Overseas Studies on Mao Tse-tung published by China Renmin University Press from 2005, ranging from Stuart Reynolds Schram’s The Thought of Mao Tse-Tung, Benjamin Yang’s From Revolution to Politics: Chinese Communists on the Long March, John Bryan Starr’s Continuing the Revolution: the Political Though of Mao, Maurice Meisner’s Marxism, Maoism and Utopianism: Eight Essays, Frederic Evans Wakeman’s History and Will: Philosophical Perspective of Mao Tse-Tung’s Thought, Brantly Womack’s The Foundations of Mao Zedong’s Political Thought 1917-1935, Benjamin 1. Schwartz’s Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao, to Ross Terrill’s Mao: A Biography.

Other translations include: Dick Wilson’s A Biography of Mao Tse-tung (published by Central Party Literature Press in 2000), The Autobiography of Mao Tse-tung transcribed by Edgar Snow (published by Qingdao Publishing House in 2003), Philip Short’s Mao: A Life (published by China Youth Publishing House in 2004), Kondo Kane’s Mao Tse-tung: A Revolutionist and Constructor (published by China Youth Publishing House in 2004), Nicolas Trafimovic Federing’s Mao Tse-tung’s Communication with Stalin and Khrushchev (published by Oriental Publishing House in 2004), and Li Zhong’s

Following Mao Tse-tung's Revolutionary Route: Mao Tse-tung in the Eyes of a Korean (published by People’s Publishing House in 2006).

Translations of biographies of other CPC leaders are Dick Wilson’s A Biography of Zhou En-lai (published by Central Party Literature Press in 2000), and David M. Beckman’s A Biography of Chen Yun (published by Central Party Literature Press in 2001). Regarding the KMT leaders, there is a translated biography: Jay Taylor’s The Generalissimo's Son: Chiang Ching-kuo and the Revolutions in China and Taiwan (published by Xinhua Publishing House in 2002).

Translations of foreign studies on figures of the late Qing Dynasty are: David Pong’s Shen Pao-chen and China’s Modernization in the Nineteenth Century (published by Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House in 2000), Katharine A. Carl’s With the Empress Dowager of China (published by Baijia Publishing House in 2001), Jonathan D. Spence’s God's Chinese Son: Biography of Hong Xiuchuan, Leader of Taiping Rebellion (published by Shanghai Far East Publishers in 2001), Willian John Townsend’s Robert Morrison: The Pioneer of Chinese Missions (published by Elephant Press in

2002), Der Ling’s Imperial Incense (published by Xuelin Publishing House in 2002), Isaac Taylor Headland’s Court Life in China (published by Baihua Literature and Art Publishing House in 2002), John King Fairbank’s Robert Marto Diary, 1835-1911 (published by China Customs Press in 2003), Isaac Taylor Headland’s Court Life in China (published by Zhonghua Book Company in 2004), and so forth.

Translated biographies of characters of the Republic of China are: Pozdinieva’s Biography of Lu Xun (published by Hunan Education Press in 2000), David Edward Pollard’s A Chinese Look at Literature: The Literature Values of Chou Tso-jen in Relation to the Tradition (published by Fudan University Press in 2001), Saito’s Brilliant Life of Nie Er (published by Shanghai Music Publishing House in 2003), Frederic Wakeman’s Spy Master: Dai Li and Chinese Secret Service (published by Unity Press in 2004), Min-chih Chou’s Hu Shih and Intellectual Choice in Modern China (published by Guangxi Normal University Press in 2005), Jeffrey C. Kinkley’s The Odyssey of Shen Cong-wen (published by the International Culture Press in 2005), Charlotte Furth’s Ting Wen-chiang: Science and China's New Culture (published by New Star Press in 2006), Dora Shu-Fang Dien’s Ding Ling and Her Mother: A Cultural Psychological Study (published by Xiamen University Press in 2006), and Axel Schneider’s Truth and History: Fu Si-nian and Chen Yin-ke's Historical Thought and National Identity (published by Social Sciences Academic Press in 2008).

The translation and publication of researches on local history is worthy of praise. The most outstanding one was The Series of Translation Concerning Shanghai History published by Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House from 2003 to 2004, including Ogata Masako’s Publicness of Modern Shanghai and China, Liu Jian-hui’s Demon Capital Shanghai: The “Modern” Experience of Japanese Intellectuals, Christian Henriot’s Prostitution and Sexuality in

Shanghai: A Social History, 1849-1949, Frederic E Wakeman’s The Shanghai Badlands: Wartime Terrorism and Urban Crime, 1937-1941, Christian Henriot’s Shanghai, 1927-1937: Municipal Power, Locality and Modernization, Yuen-Sang Leung’s The Shanghai Taotai: Linkage Man in a Changing Society, Frederic E. Wakeman’s Policing Shanghai: 1927-1937, and Emily Honig’s Creating Chinese Ethnicity: Subei People in Shanghai, 1850-1980.

In addition, there are also translations concerning the local history of Wuhan and Hong Kong: Stephen R. MacKinnon’s Wuhan, 1938: War, Refugees, and the Making of Modern China (Wuhan Publishing House, 2008), and Frank Welsh’s A History of Hong Kong (Central Compilation & Translation Press, 2007).

Besides the translation series mentioned above, some other translations are listed as following:

General monographs: John King Fairbank’s China: Tradition & Transformation (World Affairs Press, 2002), Edward Alsworth Ross’s The Changing Chinese: The Conflict of Oriental and Western Cultures in China (Zhonghua Book Company, 2006), Holcombe Chester’s The Real Chinaman (Zhonghua Book Company, 2006), Arthur H. Smith’s Chinese Characteristics (China Peace Publishing House, 2006), Immanuel C. Y. Hsu’s The Rise of Modern China (Beijing World Publishing Corporation, 2008).

Concerning the history of modern Chinese revolution, major translated works are: John King Fairbank’s The Great Chinese Revolution, 1800-1985 (World Affairs Press, 2000), Mark Seiden’s China in Revolution: The Yan’an Way Revisited (Social Sciences Academic Press, 2002), Mitani Takashi’s Secret Societies and Chinese Revolution (China Social Science Press, 2002), David S. G. Goodman’s Social and Political Change in Revolutionary China: the Taihang Base Area in the War of Resistance to Japan, 1937-1945 (China Social Science Press, 2003), Helen Foster Snow’s Red Dust: Autobiographies of Chinese Communists (China Social Press, 2004), Otto Bryan’s China Chronicle (Oriental Press, 2004), Yoshihiro Ishikawa’s Founding of the Communist Party of China (China Social Science Press, 2006), Arif Dirlik’s Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution (Guangxi Normal University Press, 2006), Hans J. van de Ven’s War and Nationalism in China, 1925-1945 (SDX Joint Publishing Company, 2007), and Elizabeth J. Perry’s Rebels and Revolutionaries in North China, 1845-1945 (The Commercial Press, 2007).

As regards political history and military history, major translated works are: Masumi Matsumoto’s China’s National Policy: Focused on “National Origin” from the Late Qing Dynasty to 1945 (Nationalities Publishing House,

2003), Bernard Brisset’s The Destruction of The Old Summer Palace (Zhejiang Ancient Books Publishing House, 2005), Charlotte’s The Fall of Peking (Shandong Friendship Publishing House, 2005) and Huaiyin Li’s Village Governance in North China: 1875-1936 (Zhonghua Book Company, 2008).

Regarding economic history, major translated works are: Sherman Cochran’s Big Business in China: Sino-Foreign Rivalry in the Cigarette Industry, 1890-1930 (The Commercial Press, 2001), and Kathryn Bernhardt’s

Rents, Taxes, and Peasant Resistance: The Lower Yangzi Region, 1840-1950 (Shanghai Bookstore Publishing House, 2005).

Regarding the history of Sino-foreign relations, major translated works are: Mary Gertrude Mason’s Western Concepts of China and the Chinese, 1840-1976 (Zhonghua Book Company, 2006), John Anthony George Roberts’s China Through Western Eyes, the Nineteenth Century (Current Affairs Press, 1999), Paul A. Cohen & Merle Goldman’s Fairbank Remembered (Oriental Press, 2000), James L. Hevia’s Cherishing Men from Afar (Social Sciences Academic Press, 2002), Dominic Shi Fong Lee’s The American Missionaries, The Mandarins, and The Opium War (Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 2004), Carolle J. Carter’s Mission to Yenan: American Liaison with the Chinese Communists, 1944-1947 (World Affairs Press, 2004), Peter H. Koehn & Xiao-Huang Yin’s The Expanding Roles of Chinese Americans in US-China Relations: Transnational Networks and Trans-Pacific Interactions (Xinhua Publishing House, 2004), Muriel Detree’s France-China: The Collision of Two Worlds (Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 2004), W. Travis Hanes & Frank Sanello’s The Opium Wars: The Addiction of One Empire and the Corruption of Another (SDX Joint Publishing Company, 2005), Jun Xing’s Baptized in the Fire of Revolution: The American Social Gospel and YMCA in China, 1919-1937 (Shanghai Ancient Books Publishing House, 2006), Jonathan Goldstein’s China-Jews-Israel, 1903-2003, A Hundred Year Retrospective (China Social Science Press, 2006), David E. Mungello’s The Great Encounter of China and the West, 1500-1800 (New Star Press, 2007), and Xu Guoqi’s China and the Great War: China’s Pursuit of a New National Identity and Internationalization (Shanghai Joint Publishing Press, 2008).

As for social history, major translated works are: L. C. Arlington & William Lewisohn’s In Search of Old Peking (Economic Science Press, 1999), George William Skinner’s The City in Late Imperial China (Zhonghua Book Company, 2000), Maurice Freedman’s Lineage Organization in Southeastern China (Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 2000), James Z. Lee & Wang Feng’s One Quarter of Humanity: Malthusian Mythology and Chinese Realities, 1700-2000 (SDX Joint Publishing Company, 2000), Mechthild Leutner’s Birth, Marriage and Death in Beijing: Folk Culture and Elite Culture from the 19th Century to the Present (Zhonghua Book Company, 2001), Brian G. Martin’s The Shanghai Green Gang (Shanghai Joint Publishing Press, 2002), Hiroshi Okada’s Social History of Ethnic Groups in South China (Nationalities Publishing House, 2002), Xin Zhang’s Social Transformation in Modern China: The State and Local Elites in Henan, 1900-1937 (Zhonghua Book Company, 2004), Kenneth Pomeranz’s The Making of a Hinterland: State, Society, and Economy in Inland North China, 1853-1937 (Social Sciences Academic Press, 2005), Linda Cooke Johnson’s Cities of Jiangnan in Late Imperial China (Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 2005), and Kathryn Bernhardt’s Women and Property in China, 960-1949 (Shanghai Bookstore Publishing House, 2007).

Regarding cultural history, major translated works are: Jean-Pierre Drege’s Shanghai Commercial Press, 1897-1949 (Commercial Press, 2000), Jerome B. Grieder’s Intellectuals and the State in Modern China (Nankai University Press, 2002), Enomoto Yasuko’s Shanghai as the Capita! of Musicians: The Beginning of Western Music in Modern China (Shanghai Music Publishing House, 2003), Patrick Hanan’s The Rise of Modern Chinese Novel (Shanghai Education Press, 2004), Herbert Hoi-Lap Ho’s Protestant Missionary Publications in Modern China 1912 - 1949 (Sichuan University Press, 2004), David Der-wei Wang’s Fin-de-Siecle Splendor: Repressed Modernities of Late Qing Fiction, 1849-1911 (Peking University Press, 2005), Tarumoto Teruo’s Collected Studies on Chinese Novels of the Late Qing Dynasty (Qilu Publishing House, 2007), Leo Ou-fan Lee’s Shanghai Modern: The Flowering of a New Urban Culture in China, 1930-1945 (Shanghai Joint Publishing Press, 2008), and John Knight Shryock’s The Temples of Anking and Their Cults: A study of Modern Chinese Religion (Anhui University Press, 2008).

During this period of time, a great variety of translated studies on modern Chinese history were published. Based on our survey, up to 200 translated books have been published since 1998 (besides studies from the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Russia and Japan, there are also researches from Portugal, New Zealand, Australia, South Korea, Israel, the Netherlands, and Canada), roughly the same as that of the previous 50 years, which shows the prosperity of translating and publishing overseas studies, and further reflects that with the continuous deepening of China’s reform and opening up and the increasing of economic strength, both the domestic studies on modern Chinese history and communications with overseas researchers of modern history have entered an unprecedented stage of rapid development.+

While further absorbing and learning from the theories and methods of overseas researches, domestic researchers gave more in-depth thinking to the foreign viewpoints as well. If we admit that translations before 1966 aimed at criticism and translations during the 20 years before the reform and opening up were virtually accepting and imitating foreign studies, domestic modern historians held a more rational attitude toward overseas researches in the past 10 years and they tended to discuss or refute them after serious meditation upon the Chinese modern history rather than criticizing or accepting it blindly. From a global perspective, the significance of overseas scholars’ theories and models for the study of modern Chinese history lies in urging Chinese researchers to attach more importance to establishing theoretical frameworks and discovering the “gap” in empirical research. After a relatively solid empirical research phase in the 1990s, Chinese researchers came to realize the need to criticize and reflect on western theories consciously and soberly, which will be illustrated by the following examples.

1. Criticism of China-centered approach. Before 1970, dominant models in the study of modern Chinese history in the United States were Impact-Response Model, Modern Model (or Tradition-Modern Model) and Imperialist Model (or Imperialist-Revolutionary model), which was challenged by Paul A. Cohen in his book Discovering History in China: American Historical Writing on the Recent Chinese Past, in which Cohen attempted to get rid of the influence of “Western Centralism” and establish the China-centered approach. In the first three chapters, Cohen explored the prejudice of “Western Centralism” embodied in the three dominant models mentioned above and other research orientations, and raised an objection against studying modern Chinese history in the ideological framework of Imperialist Model, Impact-Response Model and even with the concept of “modern”, on the basis of which, Cohen put forward the China-centered approach maintaining that due to China’s unique historical appearance and development course, researchers should conduct historical studies from the perspective of Chinese history and focus on the trajectory of Chinese history and Chinese perceptions of China issues, rather than just from the perspective of western history. Undoubtedly, Cohen’s views shed light on modern Chinese history studies and had a significant impact on later studies. As Xia Ming-fang proposed, “since the 1990s, the paradigm of studies on modern Chinese history has been increasingly challenged by the China-centered approach proposed by American Sinologist”.¹⁷ In the 21st century, scholars began to criticize the defects and internal contradictions of the China-centered approach, among which, Xia Ming-fang’s criticism was the most comprehensive and in-depth.

Xia Ming-fang summarized the three core arguments of Cohen as “Deimpact Theory” (in terms of the dynamics of historical development), “Demodernization Theory” (in terms of its direction) and “De-Imperialism” (in terms of its subject), which conforms to the trend of the anti-European Centralism that has arisen in European and American intellectual circles, and consoles the Chinese scholars who are unwilling to face up to or deliberately avoid and even forget the bitter reality of modern China, therefore, has made an increasingly wide-ranging impact once it was transmitted to China. However, Xia Ming-fang argued that Cohen actually took “a strategy similar to tug-of-war”, in that Cohen insisted on searching for the inner driving force for Chinese history to take the place of former “western shock” theory; to counter the former perspective of binary opposition between tradition and modernity, Cohen tried to erase the difference between the two; Cohen proposed to weaken the influence of imperialism, thus replacing the previous argument that imperialism played a decisive role, whether it was good or bad. “Cohen’s theory went too far to the opposite pole, so that it may seriously restrain our thinking while stimulating the historical imagination”. Xia Ming-fang contended that though the popularity of Cohen’s theory in China was “a further reaction to the dogmatized Marxism”, the result seems to be neither the restoration of historical materialism nor the establishment of a new paradigm of Chinese style with local characteristics, hence a new dogmatized Marxism.¹⁸

Luo Zhi-tian pointed out that the proposal of “discovering history in China’’ became so popular in China that quite a number of scholars accepted it without carefully examining the original intention of the author, thereby making its “image” somewhat blurred. Cohen’s orientation was originally for western scholars’ studies on Chinese history, thus not necessarily fit for scholars of mainland China, who had always focused their researches on the domestic factors while neglecting the foreign ones. “Since western thoughts has been integrated into Chinese traditions, and there has been a tradition of conducting researches in western framework or with western concepts, it is most advisable for Chinese scholars to study history restricted to China, that is, to discover the history of China rather than ‘discovering history in China’”.¹⁹

• 2. Reflection on the Skinner Model. A mind-boggling number of researches were focused on Chinese social history in the United States, whereas fewer were devoted to political history and diplomatic history. Researchers like William Skinner dissected China’s social and economic changes, and put forward China Historical Geographic Information Systems (CHGIS),²⁰ which was not only widely acclaimed in the international community and adopted as the theoretical framework in social-economy studies, but also greatly inspired Chinese researchers, giving rise to a considerable number of influential researches in this field.²¹ Nevertheless, Chinese researchers gradually discovered the defects and inner contradictions in the Skinner Model, and made criticisms on the basis of empirical researches later, among which, the hexagonal-shaped market theory received most. Quite a lot of researchers argued that the hexagonal-shaped market theory was deduced from William Skinner’s studies on the Chengdu Plain and the deduction was problematic; still many a researcher held that it was wrong to apply the theory in the whole of China which was Chengdu-specific; and others contended that the theory was a replication of a European model. Wang Qing-cheng questioned the Skinner Model after a thorough study of markets and market circles in North China during the late Qing Dynasty on the basis of dozens of local chronicles,²² which was regarded as “one of the few that are of the same significance as William Skinner’s”.²³ Comparing researches of Chinese with foreign scholars in this field, we can find that it is inevitable that foreign researches are questioned due to incomplete first-hand data, hence a model or theory mainly based on cumbersome theoretical derivation or logical reasoning. Therefore, Papers of Wang Qing-cheng, Shi Jian-yun, Ren Fang and Huang Zheng-lin published on Modern Chinese History Studies proposed dialogues between researchers at home and abroad, and a response to the view of western cultural hegemony in Chinese humanities and social sciences. Academic discussions of this kind inspired a thought-provoking issue, that is, how to apply foreign theoretical frameworks and analysis models to China studies.
• 3. Discussion on The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (Kenneth Pomeranz, 2000). Since the 1980s, due to the long-term infiltration of new economic history, foreign researchers, the Americans in particular, have begun to study Chinese economic history in the framework of new economic history, giving rise to the California School (a group of scholars from the University of California focused their researches on Chinese economic history), among whom William Skinner is one who proposed Skinner Model, on the basis of his researches of rural society and the urbanization of China in the framework of the market system theory and regional system theory combined with central place theory, spatial network theory and so forth, which has made a major impact on the study of modern Chinese history in terms of modern market history, urban history and population history. Other representative scholars are Roy Bin Wong, James Lee, Andre Gunder Frank, Goldstone, Kenneth Pomeranz, and Bo-zhong Li who once visited and gave lectures in California. The California School featured their researches for “a popular trend in academic re-evaluation of Chinese history and world history”, and reached a consensus that China in the 18th century was more prosperous than previous researchers had expected, although there are still a handful of controversial issues. Representative research results are listed as the following: One Quarter of Humanity, Malthusian Mythology and Chinese Realities 1700-2000 (Wang Feng & James Z. Lee, 1999), China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience (R. Bin Wong, 1999), ReORIENT: Global Economy in the Asian Age (Andre Gunder Frank, 1998) and The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy (Kenneth Pomeranz, 2000).

Among the works mentioned above, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy is the most influential one in the Chinese academic community. To find out why the industrial revolution occurred in Western Europe and what are the unique endogenous advantages of Western Europe that led to the industrial revolution, Kenneth Pomeranz sorted and conducted a regional comparative analysis of a variety of viewpoints of Western European centralism, and finally arrive at a novel conclusion: the East and the West were on roughly the same development path, and the latter did not show any unique endogenous advantages, whereas in the late 18th and early 19th century, the two chose different paths and the gap between them became increasingly huge, which resulted from the following two main reasons: development of the Americans and the superior geographical location of the British coal mines.

Ever since its publication, The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy has attracted widespread attention and sparked heated discussion, among which, Philip C. C. Huang and Wang Jia-fan both got papers published to criticize Kenneth Pomeranz’s viewpoints.²⁴ Shi Jian-yun, translator of the book The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy, criticized the plausible logic and argument of this book, in that Kenneth Pomeranz compared the various elements of Western European centralism with those of other areas respectively, but arrived at a conclusion that Western European countries did not show any unique endogenous advantages on the basis that there was no one single area sharing exactly the same elements and development path as the Western European countries. The problem of Kenneth Pomeranz’s logic lies in that there is definitely at least one area that does share the same particular element worldwide.

In Shi Jian-yun’s view, modernization is such a systematic project that a combination of various factors contribute to it, that is to say, Great Britain of the 18th century possessed the most advantages and conditions for modernization, followed by Southern China and Japan, with India and Africa possessing only one. Therefore, even if Britain possessed one single unique endogenous factor, it stood to reason that it was in Britain that modernization first took place. The advantages that Southern China did not have were probably not important and did not play a decisive role in its modernization, nevertheless, combining with other factors, constituted a critical advantage for Britain. In other words, the unique endogenous advantage of Great Britain was that it possessed the most advantages and conditions at the same time.²⁵

4. Review of the postmodernism in historiography. Postmodernism is such an esoteric concept that it is in constant change and has penetrated into all aspects of contemporary society, such as natural science, philosophy, humanities and social sciences, hence more an ideology than a “state”. To grasp the connotation of postmodernism, we must first understand its denotation. The so-called modernism implies the best method and approach, whose defining characteristics are the complete belief and trust in science and technology, speaking highly of the positive effects of technology, and the belief that development is inevitable and desirable.

Formally speaking, postmodernism is a trend of thought that originates from modernism and suspects and even rebels against it at the same time; in terms of its content, postmodernism is the contemplation of and response to the negative effects of industrial civilization, deconstruction of problems arising in the process of modernization, such as the deprivation of subjectivity, rigidifying human senses, integrality, centrality and identity of mechanism, and criticism of such western traditional philosophy as essentialism, foundationalism, metaphysics and logocentism; in essence, postmodernism is the correction of and rebellion against western traditional philosophy and western modern society, aiming to abandon the basic premise and normative content of modernity, and even the ideas of modernity. If modernism aims to seek eternal truths, then postmodernism is the suspicion of the claimed eternal truths; if modernism aims to seek a clear representation of knowledge, then postmodernism contends that knowledge is in constant change as the human enters the post-industrial era. In a word, the representative nature of postmodernism is its rejection of the characteristics of modernism, and replacing it with such ideas as belief diversity, comprehensively examining the results of technology and reflecting upon the inevitability of development and whether “technological development” belongs to it or not. While encompassing a wide variety of approaches, postmodernism is generally defined by an attitude of skepticism, irony, or rejection toward the metanarratives and ideologies of modernism, often calling into question various assumptions of Enlightenment rationality. Consequently, common targets of postmodern critique include universalist notions of objective reality, morality, truth, human nature, reason, language, and social progress. After the ideologies of postmodernism were introduced into the field of historical research, postmodern historiography came into being, whose central tenets are the view that history is what humans make of it, and historical facts are inaccessible, leaving the historian to his or her imagination and ideological bent to reconstruct what happened in the past, namely, multiple “historical truths” exist. Postmodern historiography aims to thoroughly criticize modern historiography and even overthrow all its ideologies, while focusing on the study of non-central, non-elite and irrational history, that is, to study the pluralistic, diverse, non-Western, marginal, ordinary, subordinate, feminine and incidental history, thereby known as “microscopic narrative”. Additionally, postmodern historiography advocates constructing historical plots and scenes, plot imagination and counterfactual studies.²⁶

Paul A. Cohen’s History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth, a work deeply influenced by postmodernism, is designed to expound Cohen’s views on history and historical research in telling the history of the Boxer Movement, rather than merely describing it. Taking the Boxer Movement as an example, Cohen shared with readers his understanding of such questions as what is history, how should history be viewed, and how does the history the human experienced, history in historians’ books and that in mythology, interact with one or another? The first part of the book narrates history from historians’ view; the second part examines the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of various people, home and abroad, involved in the Boxer Movement, which shows a striking difference with the history reshaped by historians; the third part reviews the myths of the Boxers (including the red lanterns: a female organization of the Boxers, taking its name from members’ red dress and lanterns held in the hand) produced in China in the 20th century. Cohen asserts that human experiences and mythology are more convincing and thus of greater influence on ordinary readers. In the introductory

Translating overseas studies 251 part of the book, Cohen points out “the history reshaped in historians’ books is different from the history people experienced, no matter how the historical materials that historians can choose and their actual selection is close to the historical truth and human experiences, the history depicted in historians’ books is certainly different from the real history in some respects”. “Extremely absorbed with the uncertainty, incompleteness and ephemerality of history, historians make every effort to understand and interpret history with the materials they collected and their own imagination, only to find that their interpretation is neither a restoration of the real history nor a simple demonstration of historical narrators’ values and aspirations”. Therefore, “historians ought to seek a certain balance between the present and the past when reshaping history, in the process of which historians should also adjust their own ideas constantly”. Undoubtedly, all the views of Cohen above are of great inspiration to Chinese historians, and the postmodern tendencies in the book deserve our attention. As Hayden White, a representative of postmodern theory, claimed that “the manifest historical text is marked by strategies of explanation, which include explanation by argument, explanation by employment, and explanation by ideological implication. Historical writing was influenced by literary writing in many ways, sharing the strong reliance on narrative for meaning, therefore eliminating the possibility of objective or truly scientific history”.²⁷

Quite a lot of criticism arose in the Chinese academic community on postmodern tendencies in historiography; as Yu He-ping stated “they are essentially an anti-science historical nihilism, which has a positive effect on Western centralism and enriches historical research, yet has such negative effects as fragmented and pseudo-history”.²⁸ After detailed study of the related history of Cai E and Xiao Feng-xian, Zeng Ye-ying argued that historians cannot follow the postmodern tendencies blindly, instead, great importance ought to be attached to verification of historical materials. “Historical researchers, whose tenet is to seek truth, will never accept such practices as denying the credibility of historical materials indiscriminately, denying the possibility of seeking historical truth, denying the objectivity of historical knowledge, asserting that it is not necessary to test the authenticity of historical materials and historical facts, or even attempt to ‘liberate’ historians from academic norms and overthrow the traditional methods of historical studies”.²⁹

The above-mentioned reflections, discussions and criticisms demonstrate the ideological tendency of Chinese scholars to establish a new paradigm with local characteristics, indicating the maturity and profoundness of Chinese scholars in academic dialogues with international researchers in the 21st century.

All in all, over the past 60 years, the translation of overseas works on modern Chinese history research entered a period of prosperity after going through tortuous development, just like the history of the People’s Republic of China. However, there are still hidden concerns behind the prosperity, namely, the quality of translations is deteriorating, and mistakes and mistranslations might mislead future research, which will eventually generate readers’ doubts of the accuracy of translations and thereby bring about serious damage to translations themselves that are essential to academic development. Consequently, the top priority of translators is to improve translation quality. At present, the challenge that every researcher must face is how to absorb the quintessence of translated works, rather than take them in blindly and copy them mechanically, which is even more difficult yet most important.