“海上丝绸之路”:学术史视角下的概念讨论

“The Maritime Silk Road”:A Conceptual Discussion from the Perspective of Academic History

“海上丝路”由国外学者提出后传入国内并被广泛接受。学者们从区域或全球视角出发,对“海上丝路”的理解有狭义和广义之分,由此影响到相关问题的讨论,例如关于海上丝路始发港、时间断限、地理范围的争论。作为历史概念的“海上丝路”是指以中国丝绸为象征的、公元前2世纪至19世纪中期连接亚洲、非洲、欧洲、美洲的海上交通网络,涵盖政治、经济、文化的交流。它见证了两千年来世界多元文明的交流互动,从全球史视角思考“海上丝路”,有助于打破中国史与世界史的学科界限,形成融中国史于世界史的“大历史”研究格局,做到立足中国、放眼全球,从而推动中国历史学的学科体系、学术体系和话语体系建设。

The“Maritime Silk Road”was proposed by foreign scholars and then introduced into China and widely accepted.Scholars’understanding of the“Maritime Silk Road”has been narrowly and broadly defined from different regional and global perspectives,which has affected the discussion of related issues,such as the debate on the starting port,time limit,and geographic scope of the Maritime Silk Road.As a historical concept,the“Maritime Silk Road”refers to the maritime transportation network from the 2nd century BC to the middle of the 19th century connecting Asia,Africa,Europe and the Americas,symbolized by Chinese silk,and encompassing political,economic and cultural exchanges.It has witnessed the exchanges and interactions of multiple civilizations in the world over the past 2000 years.Thinking about the“Maritime Silk Road”from the perspective of global history will help to break down the disciplinary boundaries between Chinese history and world history,and form a research pattern of“big history”that integrates Chinese history with world history,so as to achieve the goal of being based on China with a global perspective,thus promoting the construction of the disciplinary,academic and discourse systems of Chinese history.