The Sage Handbook of Interpreting Chinese History
1st Edition
Published on 31. January 2026
604 pages
978-1-0362-0249-1 (ISBN)
Description
The Sage Handbook of Interpreting Chinese History offers an in-depth exploration of the evolution of historical narratives in China over the past century. Bringing together some of the world's leading scholars, this handbook provides both depth and breadth to our understanding of how Chinese leaders, intellectuals, and the public conceive of their place in the world. It examines the dramatic shifts in historical interpretation, documenting both the creative use and disastrous abuse of the Chinese past.
China's growing global influence has led to increased interest in its historical perspectives. Understanding contemporary Chinese conceptions of international politics and intercultural relations requires a deep dive into how history is interpreted and taught in China. This handbook aims to "look under the hood" at the motivations and methods behind historical storytelling, the role of historical knowledge in social and political stability, and the deployment of key terms and images in politics and social life.
The handbook is organized into several key sections. The first section provides an overview of key ideas such as the "tributary system" and constitutionalism, alongside critical analyses of intellectual history and Sino-foreign relations. The subsequent sections delve into how history was written and historical narratives disseminated and deployed in four different eras of modern Chinese history: the late-Qing period, the Republican era, the Maoist era, and the Reform era. Each era is examined through the lens of official and popular history, exploring the relationship between history and memory. The final section introduces perspectives on historical narratives from Chinese border regions, as well as Sinophone narratives produced outside the PRC state system, highlighting the diversity of views on Chinese history.
The Sage Handbook of Interpreting Chinese History is an essential resource for scholars, practitioners, and students seeking to understand the complexities of historical interpretation in modern China. It provides a comprehensive and nuanced exploration of the field, equipping readers to engage with the theoretical and practical aspects of Chinese historical narratives.
Part I: Overviews and Framing Chapters
Part II: History in the Late-Qing Era
Part III: History in the Republican Era
Part IV: History in the Maoist Era
Part V: History in the Reform Era
Part VI: Border Histories
China's growing global influence has led to increased interest in its historical perspectives. Understanding contemporary Chinese conceptions of international politics and intercultural relations requires a deep dive into how history is interpreted and taught in China. This handbook aims to "look under the hood" at the motivations and methods behind historical storytelling, the role of historical knowledge in social and political stability, and the deployment of key terms and images in politics and social life.
The handbook is organized into several key sections. The first section provides an overview of key ideas such as the "tributary system" and constitutionalism, alongside critical analyses of intellectual history and Sino-foreign relations. The subsequent sections delve into how history was written and historical narratives disseminated and deployed in four different eras of modern Chinese history: the late-Qing period, the Republican era, the Maoist era, and the Reform era. Each era is examined through the lens of official and popular history, exploring the relationship between history and memory. The final section introduces perspectives on historical narratives from Chinese border regions, as well as Sinophone narratives produced outside the PRC state system, highlighting the diversity of views on Chinese history.
The Sage Handbook of Interpreting Chinese History is an essential resource for scholars, practitioners, and students seeking to understand the complexities of historical interpretation in modern China. It provides a comprehensive and nuanced exploration of the field, equipping readers to engage with the theoretical and practical aspects of Chinese historical narratives.
Part I: Overviews and Framing Chapters
Part II: History in the Late-Qing Era
Part III: History in the Republican Era
Part IV: History in the Maoist Era
Part V: History in the Reform Era
Part VI: Border Histories
Reviews / Votes
History in modern China is not only a mirror to contemporary culture, politics, and society. In the chapters of this Sage Handbook, it also serves as a prism through which we view China's understanding of itself and the world, its experience in revolution and reform, and the depth and diversity of its narratives over time. Representing the world's leading experts and covering a wide range of topics-including official and unofficial texts and sources-these essays will be an indispensable guide for every student and scholar of China.-- Denise Y. Ho The Sage Handbook of Interpreting Chinese History offers a fresh and insightful exploration of how history-writing has been continually reshaped within China's shifting political landscapes. By interweaving official narratives, popular culture, and gendered perspectives, the volume illuminates the dynamic interplay between memory, identity, and power. Its innovative focus on how cultural forms and everyday practices inform historical interpretation makes it essential reading for understanding both the resilience and reinvention of historical consciousness in modern China. It is an ambitious and timely contribution that situates historiography at the intersection of politics and culture. -- Q. Edward Wang
More details
Series
Edition
1. Auflage
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
SAGE Publishing (Digital)
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Reflowable
File size
11,30 MB
ISBN-13
978-1-0362-0249-1 (9781036202491)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Kristin Stapleton | Xin Fan | Els van Dongen
The Sage Handbook of Interpreting Chinese History
Book
approx. 02/2026
1st Edition
SAGE Publications Ltd
€180.40
Not yet published
Persons
Kristin Stapleton has written two books on the transformation of Chinese cities in the 20th century, one focusing on the adoption of Western-style institutions such as professional police and municipal governments, and one that examines how writer Ba Jin's "Family," one of China's most famous 20th-century novels, represented city life.
The influence of fiction and film on perceptions of Chinese history in China and the United States is one of her interests. She is a fellow in the Public Intellectuals Program of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.
Stapleton's research also examines the history of Chinese city life in the 1950s, when China was allied with the Soviet Union.
Dr Xin Fan teaches at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge. He is a fellow at Lucy Cavendish College. He is the author of "World History and National Identity in China: The Twentieth Century" (CUP, 2021), of "Global History in China" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024), and the second editor of "Receptions of Greek and Roman Antiquity in East Asia" (Brill, 2018).
Els van Dongen received her Ph.D. from the Department of Chinese Studies, Leiden University (the Netherlands). She obtained her M.A. and B.A. degrees from the Department of Chinese Studies, University of Leuven (Belgium), and a post-graduate degree in International Relations from the Department of Political Science, University of Leuven. Prior to joining NTU, she also studied and conducted research in China (Central China Normal University and Peking University), and the USA (Boston University). She completed her Ph.D. with the support of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Fulbright Foundation.
Els specializes in the study of modern and contemporary China from global and interdisciplinary perspectives. Her research broadly covers two main areas, namely Chinese intellectual history and knowledge circulation and Chinese migration and diaspora. Both areas are connected in that they reflect her core concern of how the transnational movement of people, ideas, and institutions has informed the making of modern and contemporary China. Methodologically, she combines textual analysis of a broad range of Chinese primary sources with interdisciplinary, regional, global, and comparative approaches developed from her training in Chinese Studies, history and International Relations.
The influence of fiction and film on perceptions of Chinese history in China and the United States is one of her interests. She is a fellow in the Public Intellectuals Program of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.
Stapleton's research also examines the history of Chinese city life in the 1950s, when China was allied with the Soviet Union.
Dr Xin Fan teaches at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge. He is a fellow at Lucy Cavendish College. He is the author of "World History and National Identity in China: The Twentieth Century" (CUP, 2021), of "Global History in China" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024), and the second editor of "Receptions of Greek and Roman Antiquity in East Asia" (Brill, 2018).
Els van Dongen received her Ph.D. from the Department of Chinese Studies, Leiden University (the Netherlands). She obtained her M.A. and B.A. degrees from the Department of Chinese Studies, University of Leuven (Belgium), and a post-graduate degree in International Relations from the Department of Political Science, University of Leuven. Prior to joining NTU, she also studied and conducted research in China (Central China Normal University and Peking University), and the USA (Boston University). She completed her Ph.D. with the support of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Fulbright Foundation.
Els specializes in the study of modern and contemporary China from global and interdisciplinary perspectives. Her research broadly covers two main areas, namely Chinese intellectual history and knowledge circulation and Chinese migration and diaspora. Both areas are connected in that they reflect her core concern of how the transnational movement of people, ideas, and institutions has informed the making of modern and contemporary China. Methodologically, she combines textual analysis of a broad range of Chinese primary sources with interdisciplinary, regional, global, and comparative approaches developed from her training in Chinese Studies, history and International Relations.
Content
Introduction - Kristin Stapleton, Els Van Dongen, Xin Fan
Part I. Overviews and Framing Chapters
Chapter 1. The Daotong, Genealogy, and History: On the Sources of Chinese Intellectual History's Narrative Framework - GE Zhaoguang
Chapter 2. Conceptualizing the Foreign Relations of Late Imperial China: The Interpretative Entanglement of Two Worldviews, 1880s-2020s - Yuanchong Wang
Chapter 3. The Politics of Constructing the History of China's Foreign Relations in the PRC - Tansen Sen
Chapter 4. Visions of History in Chinese Constitutional Law - Egas Bernard Bender De Moniz Bandeira
Chapter 5. Corporeality and Conceptions of History: How Gender Changed the Experience of the Past and Present - Louise Edwards
Chapter 6. Historical Imaginations of High Qing Emperors in Sinophone Popular Cultures - Fei-Hsien Wang
Part II. History in the Late-Qing Era
Chapter 7. Chinese Historical Thinking and Civil Service Examinations in the Late 19th Century - Thomas H. C. Lee
Chapter 8. "Official Periodicals" (Gazetteers, Gazettes, and Directories) and Qing History - Emily Mokros
Chapter 9. Publishing and Communication in Late Qing China - Natascha Gentz
Chapter 10. Memorials and Works of Commemoration in the Late Qing Period - Charles Desnoyers
Chapter 11. History in Late-Qing Popular Culture - Igor Chabrowski
Part III. History in the Republican Era
Chapter 12. The Development of the History Profession and its Relation to the State - Xin Fan
Chapter 13. History Textbooks and Historical Education in Republican China - Jenny Huangfu Day
Chapter 14. The Hope and Fear in Joining the Modern World: Changing Frameworks of Historical Analysis in Late Qing and Republican China - Tzeki Hon
Chapter 15. Displaying History: Constructing National Heritage in Modern China - Peter Zarrow
Chapter 16. Memorials and Commemorative Structures in the Republican Era - Linh Vu
Chapter 17. National Humiliation and National Pride: History in Popular Culture during the Republican Period - Yajun Mo
Part IV. History in the Maoist Era
Chapter 18. Changing Frameworks of Historical Analysis - Huaiyu Chen
Chapter 19. Textbooks and History Education in the Maoist Era (1942-1978) - Marc Andre Matten
Chapter 20. Ethnography as History-Chinese Ethnologists and the Construction of the Marxist Periodization Scheme of Chinese History - Xiaorong Han
Chapter 21. Radical Pasts, Maoist Futures: History in the Cultural Revolution - Zachary Scarlett
Chapter 22. Accusations and Confessions in Case Files - Man Zhang
Part V. History in the Reform Era
Chapter 23. Chinese Historiography during the Era of Reform and Opening - Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik
Chapter 24 Rethinking China's Past after China's Rise: Chinese Intellectuals and Modern China - David Ownby
Chapter 25. Using the Past to Serve the Present - The Role of History in Post-Mao Chinese Nationalism - Robert Weatherley
Chapter 26. Museums and the Making of Public History in Post-Mao China: Reimagining the Chinese nation in the Overseas Chinese Museum - Cangbai Wang
Chapter 27. Narrating History in Reform Era Chinese Cinema - Yiyang Hou
Part VI. Border Histories
Chapter 28: From China's Frontier to Frontier China - Xiaoyuan Liu
Chapter 29: "Rediscovering" 2-28: Knowledge Production, Memorialization, and the Emergence of Taiwanese Nationalism - Evan Dawley
Chapter 30: Historical Memory in Hong Kong: Agency under the shadow of empires - Gina Anne Tam
Chapter 31: "History in Xinjiang: The Changing Nature and Resiliency of Historical Practices from the late Qing to the Present - Sandrine Catris
Chapter 32: Popular Historical Narratives of Overseas Migration - Steven B. Miles
Part I. Overviews and Framing Chapters
Chapter 1. The Daotong, Genealogy, and History: On the Sources of Chinese Intellectual History's Narrative Framework - GE Zhaoguang
Chapter 2. Conceptualizing the Foreign Relations of Late Imperial China: The Interpretative Entanglement of Two Worldviews, 1880s-2020s - Yuanchong Wang
Chapter 3. The Politics of Constructing the History of China's Foreign Relations in the PRC - Tansen Sen
Chapter 4. Visions of History in Chinese Constitutional Law - Egas Bernard Bender De Moniz Bandeira
Chapter 5. Corporeality and Conceptions of History: How Gender Changed the Experience of the Past and Present - Louise Edwards
Chapter 6. Historical Imaginations of High Qing Emperors in Sinophone Popular Cultures - Fei-Hsien Wang
Part II. History in the Late-Qing Era
Chapter 7. Chinese Historical Thinking and Civil Service Examinations in the Late 19th Century - Thomas H. C. Lee
Chapter 8. "Official Periodicals" (Gazetteers, Gazettes, and Directories) and Qing History - Emily Mokros
Chapter 9. Publishing and Communication in Late Qing China - Natascha Gentz
Chapter 10. Memorials and Works of Commemoration in the Late Qing Period - Charles Desnoyers
Chapter 11. History in Late-Qing Popular Culture - Igor Chabrowski
Part III. History in the Republican Era
Chapter 12. The Development of the History Profession and its Relation to the State - Xin Fan
Chapter 13. History Textbooks and Historical Education in Republican China - Jenny Huangfu Day
Chapter 14. The Hope and Fear in Joining the Modern World: Changing Frameworks of Historical Analysis in Late Qing and Republican China - Tzeki Hon
Chapter 15. Displaying History: Constructing National Heritage in Modern China - Peter Zarrow
Chapter 16. Memorials and Commemorative Structures in the Republican Era - Linh Vu
Chapter 17. National Humiliation and National Pride: History in Popular Culture during the Republican Period - Yajun Mo
Part IV. History in the Maoist Era
Chapter 18. Changing Frameworks of Historical Analysis - Huaiyu Chen
Chapter 19. Textbooks and History Education in the Maoist Era (1942-1978) - Marc Andre Matten
Chapter 20. Ethnography as History-Chinese Ethnologists and the Construction of the Marxist Periodization Scheme of Chinese History - Xiaorong Han
Chapter 21. Radical Pasts, Maoist Futures: History in the Cultural Revolution - Zachary Scarlett
Chapter 22. Accusations and Confessions in Case Files - Man Zhang
Part V. History in the Reform Era
Chapter 23. Chinese Historiography during the Era of Reform and Opening - Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik
Chapter 24 Rethinking China's Past after China's Rise: Chinese Intellectuals and Modern China - David Ownby
Chapter 25. Using the Past to Serve the Present - The Role of History in Post-Mao Chinese Nationalism - Robert Weatherley
Chapter 26. Museums and the Making of Public History in Post-Mao China: Reimagining the Chinese nation in the Overseas Chinese Museum - Cangbai Wang
Chapter 27. Narrating History in Reform Era Chinese Cinema - Yiyang Hou
Part VI. Border Histories
Chapter 28: From China's Frontier to Frontier China - Xiaoyuan Liu
Chapter 29: "Rediscovering" 2-28: Knowledge Production, Memorialization, and the Emergence of Taiwanese Nationalism - Evan Dawley
Chapter 30: Historical Memory in Hong Kong: Agency under the shadow of empires - Gina Anne Tam
Chapter 31: "History in Xinjiang: The Changing Nature and Resiliency of Historical Practices from the late Qing to the Present - Sandrine Catris
Chapter 32: Popular Historical Narratives of Overseas Migration - Steven B. Miles
