The Geography Turn And Modern Chinese Historiography

The "Geography Turn" of history is not only a "Geographical View of History",but also a new direction of researching history by applying geographic knowledge and theory.As the object model of history to pursue "scientization" and "specialization",it represents a historical trend of absorbing the experience of modern geography to promote the construction of history into a "profession" and "science".From the perspective of the relationship between history and geography in Chinese and Western countries,the western geography has gone through the evolution from "the maidservant of history" to "the historical reason" in status,while the Chinese geography has undergone the development from "under the history department" to "the gospel of historians" in status.There was a power transition in the relationship between history and geography.What is more,there was a saying that the research of history is the research of man-land relationship,which was influenced by a variety of factors,such as the turbulent circumstances,the advocacy of "learning history and geography at the same time","the Scientization of History",and the dissemination of western human geography.As far as the history of western historiography is concerned,history has undergone the process of "specialization" after "scientization" since modern times.The Positivist historiography,represented by Henry Thomas Buckle,strives to realize"the Scientification of Historiography" by combining geography and other natural sciences.The Rank School,represented by Ernst Bernheim,tried to realize "the Scientization of Historiography" through the maturation of "historiography methodology",but its achievement could only be called "the specialization of historiography",which was criticized by James Harvey Robinson,the pioneer of American New History.Nonetheless,in terms of the history of Chinese history,a reverse process of "scientization" after "specialization" emerged due to the distortion and asynchrony of the propagation.It forges persistently forward on the road of "the Scientification of Historiography".In the process of building "the New History",Chinese historian circle absorbed the geographic knowledge and theory actively,in an attempt to achieve "the Specialization of Historiography" and "the Scientization of Historiography" by setting up geography courses in History Departments,sending overseas students to study geography abroad,combining the departments of history and geography,and constructing the subject of historical geography and chorography.Because of the limitation of the distortion of the dissemination,"the Scientization of Historiography"began to be questioned by some scholars.Owing to the non-scientific nature of history,it emphasized the separation of history and geography departments.Due to the limitation of the times and the distortion of the transmission,the problems of"learning history and geography at the same time" became the chips of applying for middle school teachers,and all these problems have emerged one after another.However,the "geography turn" of history has produced fruitful results,with innovations in the general history writing,historical thematic writing and other aspects.Although it gradually fades out of view with the process of specialization,it has been introduced into China complementing each other with the theory of evolution,its important influence in modern Chinese historiography cannot be ignored.