追寻中国历史的“早期现代性”——对美国清史研究逻辑预设的梳理与反思

The Search for Early Modernity in Chinese History:Reflections on Logic Presumption of American Historical Studies on Qing Dynasty

近三十年来,美国的清史研究中看似不含交集的“新清史”和“大分流”讨论,实则内含一条一以贯之的主线。一方面,“新清史”试图证明:满清王朝已充分掌握并广泛应用了武力干涉、军事动员、意识形态、制图学等被奉为西欧现代国家建构的技巧,与近代早期的欧亚帝国有着极大的相似性。另一方面,“加州学派”的学者则试图呈现:几乎在所有可以度量的经济指标上,如人口结构、技术、资本积累、商业发展、农产品市场、人口迁移和农村工业等,1800年以前的西欧和中国并不存在本质上的差异。尽管存在着具体研究问题的差别,然而“新清史”和加州学派的立论背后分享了这样一个共同的预设,即近代早期东西方存在着巨大的相似性。深入探讨近三十年来美国清史研究这条暗含的主线,将有助于国内清史学界更为深入地理解“新清史”“大分流”讨论等美国清史研究的立论基础,批判性地思考“现代性”“早期现代性”等概念在中国历史研究中的适用性和局限,并在此基础上探索以中国实践为中心的学术话语体系建设的新路径。

The discussions of the“New Qing History”and the“Great Divergence”are two landmarks of American historical writing on the Qing Dynasty in the last three decades.Despite their different focuses,the two landmarks share the similarity of Eurasian Dynasty.On the one hand,the“New Qing History”School attempts to demonstrate that the state-building abilities of the early modern European states in terms of“force interference,”“military mobilization,”“ideology building,”as well as“mapping techniques”were mastered by them.On the other hand,the“California School”argues that,before the year 1800,Western Europe and China shared some economic similarities in terms of population structure,technical composition,capital accumulation,business development,agricultural product markets,population migration,and rural industry,etc.Although disparities exist,both schools share the same presumption that the two sides shared remarkably similar trajectories of economic and political evolution in early modern times.To shed light on the shared assumption by the two seemingly irrelevant schools will advance our understanding of the foundation of recent American historiography on the“New Qing History”and the“Great Divergence”and offer a new angle to rethinking the capability of such concepts as“modernity”and“early modernity”in Qing studies of the Chinese-language world.