For Whom We Write History——the Chinese Road Of Public History

Hitory indicates two meanings:one is which has been past but existed, one is the discourse construction of the past. Although the discourse construction of the past should comply with the presence of the past in some extent, the discourse constructors have enough discourse space to write different histories. As the limits of human society, the ruling classes certainly occupy more resources, monopoly the historical discourse, began as the wizards, then the slave owners, the feudal lords and the capitalists. With the progress of the human society and the coming of the information era, more and more people, even everyone can participate in the historical discourse, which will cause the birth of public history—the history made by the consensus of the broad masses.Public history in China has two sources, one is the foreign public history, one is the applied history of1980s China, they are both the products of each plight historical development. Media history and Internet history are two important forms of public history, and strongly promote the development of public history.Chinese public history calls for the masses of the people but the minority elites to make universal consensus, to construct common historical discourse, and this is possible. To accomplish this task, we must correctly handle the relationship between the nation、the capital、the society and individuals. Finally, public history can be the one which not only can express everyone’s subjectivity but also composed by the society together.