The New Qing History In The U.S.A.: Since 1980

Ther is a trend, the term "the new Qing history", in American Qing China history studies since 1990s, which refer to a wide-ranging revision of the history, of the Manchu empire in China and Inner Asia, including the history of the peoples, cultures, politics, and socialties, with 3 most prominent features, firstly, questioning the long-held assumptions about "sinicization"of Qing court or Manchu and emphasizing that it was the Manchu trait of Qing that made Qing dynasty could overstep any past dynasties to surpass the traditional opinion of race and culture and to assimilate inside and outside of the Great Wall as one, secondly, expanding to give a skeptical eye on the notion that the Qing empire was, like its dynastic predecessors, "sinocentric," and that its conduct of foreign relations followed "the tribute system", a perduring pattern known to Western historians, and to assert Qing, as a imperialist, actively competed with other coexistent empires, and thirdly, on the above basis of anti-sinicization or anti-centrism, groups or persons, such as women and Yamen clerks, became new and important objects from the out of historians' sight.We can trace the material and academic foundations of the trend back to the 1980s, when Chinese mainland opened their historical archives to foreigners and the China centered opion in Chinese studies came in vogue. Qing history studies since the 1980s are, in the nature of things, the preparation section of the new Qing history. Moreover, Paul A. Cohen, Philip C. Huang and other scholars already eminently summarized the state before the 1980s. I have to discuss the new Qing history since 1980 in this treatise.In spite of discussing the whole new Qing history, I must select my objects examined carefully because the new Qing history becomes unlimited expanded both to comprehensive and refinement when historians divide Chinese into upper-class, lower-class, core, periphery, Chinese inside, international outside and so on to study the history. So, my dissertation concentrates the monographs and collected works, and only when both of them could not fulfill the demonstration I quote the articles in academic journals.I take every "new" breakthrough or "new" advance since 1980 as one topic, also a chapter of my dissertation, and objects are discussed in their published sequence in every chapter for the sake of one clear clue. There are 8 topics/chapters:the mass history, the economic history, the elite history, the law history, the urban history, the ethnic history, the history of diplomacy and borderland, and the women's history, in which the last 3 concentrate reflecting the prominent features of the new Qing history and the former 5 prepare for and are parts of the new Qing history.Above is the "Preface", and then here are the 8 chapters followed.Chapter 1 "The Mass in Disturbances" discourses the studies of the history of Qing mass disturbances, including the ecological root of the strategy for living of peasants in North China, the popular culture elements in Boxers, the rural resisting during the course of new politics in the late Qing, the religionary propulsion in the mass rebellion, and the pirates in southeastern Chinese coast, stressing that all of them originated from Chinese inside, did not react to western impacts.Chapter 2 "Qing in 'the New Economic History'". Historians revaluated Chinese economy before western invasion in the academic background of the new economic history attaching importance to the world perspective and the institutional analysis. Philip C. Huang appropriated the concept of "involution" to describe, deeply influencing, Chinese economy as development without growth, while Peter C. Perdue proved that traditional Chinese state reached its peak of economic potential in his studies of Hunan economic history. Sherman Cochran's studies paid attention to imperialism elements in Chinese economy, while Madeleine Zelin examined Chinese traditional elements. R. Bin Wong and Kenneth Pomeranz demonstrated traditional Chinese economy even exceeded or kept abreast of, at least, contemporary European. Zelin and Wang etc. revealed Qing's achievements in finance and food reserve in their other studies.Chapter 3, "The New Official History:the Studies of Qing State and Elites in the 18th Century", researches the studies of Chinese state before western invasion. China in the 18th century was the only biggest political-economy in its heyday and probably bred the seeds of decline in the next century, so many scholars are interesting.Chapter 4 "Qing Society in the Judicial Files" pointed out Chinese traditional law study turned into law-society study from institutional study, mainly in the initiative of Philip C. Huang. Scholars find a lively "civil law" society in abundance primary-level judicial files and central archive. It not only broken into pieces the predication that Chinese traditional law only was criminal law but also brought back to lives of quondam marginalized groups such as women and Yamen clerks.Chapter 5 "Qing Cities in New Perspectives". William T. Rowe's studies of Hankow brought it to light the economic vitality and the active non-governmental organizations of traditional Chinese city and incurred the fervent discussion about the applicability of western theory, such as "public sphere", in Chinese studies. Studies of Chengde, as a typical case of the new Qing history, show us the typical opinions about Qing emperors' multiple identities and pluralism of Qing empire. Tobie Meyer-Fong studied Yangzhou to display the cultural dimension of Qing city. Their studies realized the samples of recovery of the political, economic and cultural aspect of Qing cities.Chapter 6 "Studies of the Manchus and Qing Ethnic Groups" intensively embodies the first prominent feature of new Qing history, which focuses the manchuism characteristic of Qing court. They deem Manchu at last became a Chinese minority nationality, on the base of Qing long policy of manchuiszing, in a special revolutionary time. It is the identity of minority that led Qing court to effectively utilize different ethnic cultural symbols to image itself as the lord of all ethnicities in the empire and lay the foundation of modern China as a unified multi-ethnic country.Chapter 7 "Qing as an Imperialist:Studies of the diplomacy and borderland", by placing Qing in its contemporary international world, emphasizes Qing was with the same imperialistic idiosyncrasy. The idea about competition of imperialistic structurings sets an aggressive image of Qing as an imperialist in Qing frontier history. Wang Rongzu and some U. S. native scholars severely criticized this analogy. We must be alert to the potential political kickback of the studies in this and last chapters. Chapter 8 "The active Women of Qing". When the new Qing history, which doubts about customary various kinds of core mode, sprang up, western women studies began to abandon the simplified mode of that women were the oppressed only because women were women, and to look for the activity of women in past and now. In above academic context, Sinology became the first field of breaking the tragedy image of traditional women in history. Studies demonstrated that women continued its developmental process from Ming in Jiangnan. When the High Qing came, women even became the core of moral and economy. During the decline, they still were active in social life. In general, even though with the shortcomings of overinterpretation and being limited to women of the upper classes, furthermore, and lacking studies about women of minority nationality, all the studies construct a new image of Chinese women in history. It should inspire Chinese academic circles in perspective and even in methodology.After inspecting each topic of the new Qing history since the 1980s, in the "Epilogue", I probe into the possibility of escaping from the western discourse hegemony by quoting related ideas of Philip C. Huang, Shi Zhiyu, Yang Nianqun and Liu Dong, and, at last, give a cautiously optimistic prospect.