An Analysis Of The Evolution And Transformation Of Chinese And Western Historiography In The 17th And 18th Centuries

The 17th-18th century is the key period of Chinese and western development of society and historiography. This period is at the end of stage of Chinese traditional historiography as well as the turning point to modern historiography. In this period, the mainstream of Chinese historiography has the features like humanistic pragmatism and seeking truth from facts, etc. With the characteristics of summary and evolution, it shows great differences with previous historical development. This period is called the Age of Enlightenment which is an unprecedented thought liberation movement. This enlightenment spread throughout Europe even all over the world. During this period, the western historiography is in the transition period from awakening to science. The rationalism historiography got production and development. Besides, the bourgeoisie historiography was finally established and western historiography came to the modernization.This paper takes Gu yanwu and Voltaire as an example, through the analysis of Gu Yanwu's historiography and Voltaire's historiography, to explore the evolution and transformation of the western historiography in this period. Besides, it discusses the similarity and differences between Chinese and western evolution and transformation. Through this paper, it shows that Chinese historiography also obtained a rapid development, not far behind the west.The first chapter mainly introduces historical environment overview of evolution and transformation in Chinese and western historiography. It introduces social environment and academic atmosphere of this period and pointes out the influences of Chinese and western social history environment on the evolution and transformation of historiography. The second chapter tells Gu Yanwu's history, including his historical views and researching methods for history. The third chapter is about Chinese evolution and transformation in 17th-18th century. By introduction of Gu Yanwu's historiography in the previous chapter, it summarizes the characteristics of the development of Chinese historiography in this period and discusses about the historical evolution and transformation. The fourth chapter introduces Voltaire's history, including his historical views, historiography thoughts and researching methods for history. The fifth chapter is about the evolution and transformation of western historiography in 17th-18th century. Combined with the fourth chapter, it spies out the characteristics of western historical evolution and transformation during this period.The sixth chapter analyzes the similarities and differences between Chinese and western historical evolution and transformation in 17th-18th century. Through the comparison and analysis for the secondto the fifth chapter, this chapter extracts and concludes the similarities and differences of the evolution and transformation between Chinese and western historiography during this period.