近代中国的新史学及其流变

Trends and Changes in New Historiography of Modern China

清季以来,新史学成为中国学人不断追求的至高境界,可是对于新史学的理解和取径却各不相同。为了后来居上,此前的新史学也往往被当作不破不立的对象。在不断趋新的过程中,中国史学的形式根本改观,但要拿出超越旧史学的代表作,却并不容易。创新的前提是温故,首先要掌握史学的基本与大体,超越中西新旧,避免盲人摸象,防止以偏为新,才不至于欲辟蹊径而蹈覆辙,甚至南辕北辙。

From the Qing period, Chinese scholars have taken the new history as the supreme realm that they pursued for all their life time, but the ways of understanding and practicing the new history were different. The early new history was always taken as the object that should be broken, when the latercomers surpassed the formers, and then the new one was invented. In the course of pursuing the more new history, the style of the Chinese history is completely changed, but it is not so easy to write a representative work that can exceed the traditional history. The precondition of innovation is to review the old material, so the first job of historians is to master the basis and cardinal principle of history, to get beyond the Chinese and the Western, the new and the old, avoiding the mistakes that draw a conclusion from incomplete data, and take the unorthodox ways as new ones. In doing so, the historians will never walk back to an old way, or diametrically oppose to each other when finding a new way to understand the past.