Lv Simian And "General History Of China(Vernacular Chinese Edition)"

Historiography is a kind of subject, which discusses and makes comments on people and events in history. "General History of China (Vernacular Chinese Edition)" is a book about history written by Lv Simian at his early age, the late Qing Dynasty and early Republic of China, which is the crucial time when Chinese society experienced the social transition from conventional to modern. Under this situation, Lv Simian received the traditional academic training, and at the same time his thoughts and educational methods were in tune with the time and tides. Besides, the formation of his academic style is closely related to his unique character and quality.As new historiography sprang up, many scholars pursued to compile a general history using new concept and methods. In this process, there were many achievements but also many drawbacks. Generally speaking, the achievements were much less satisfied than expected. All of these became rich reference resource for Lv Simian to compile a new history.One of the greatest problems of compiling a new history is that what kind of standard should be chosen to discard the dross and select the essential. The selection of the standard is related to the aim of the book. This point is very important in the new type of general history, which requires good overview of content and clear organization. "General History of China (Vernacular Chinese Edition)" makes research on the evolution of Chinese society and also the causal relationship of the changes and development. It is also the aim for the author to select the events, organize the structure and also the dominant idea of the book. This aim is shown explicitly by the grasp of the trend of evolution, the stress of social revolution and the concerns on the social situation and so on and so forth.In the times of the historiography transition from the late 19^th century to the early 20^th century, the historical research method adopted in the compilation of "General History of China (Vernacular Chinese Edition)" reflects the collision and blending of the old and new concepts of historical study. First, Lv Simian was relatively innovative in terms of historical materials selection, though most of the materials he drew were ancient historical records. As to the Confucian classics, he made his choice according to historical facts instead of using the traditional way of "new text" as is generally thought. Second, in the aspect of the collation and revision of historical data, he mainly followed the textological tradition of Qian Jia School in the Qing Dynasty, besides the adoption of the western new way of "revaluation". Third, Lv's another great innovation is that he compiled historical records in vernacular Chinese, which reflected his promotion of the literature reform in the gradual way since the last years of the Qing Dynasty.The book "General History of China (Vernacular Chinese Edition)" shows two main features of Lv Simian's historical study. The first one is the fact-oriented way of historical research. He thought that knowledge does not lie on the paper but on the developing course of the whole society. Thus in historical study, he could "collate historical classics in the light of historical facts, rather than be confined to some written records". The second one is that the wide-ranging contents of this book concern both the ancient and modern times. Mr. Lv Simian did historical study combining knowledge in different fields and nearly all dynasties.