“底层眼光”下的战争书写——以梅尔清《躁动的亡魂:太平天国战争的暴力、失序与死亡》为中心

War Writing Under the “Underclass Vision”:Centering on Tobie Meyer-Fong’s What Remains:Coming to Terms with Civil War in 19th Century China

梅尔清《躁动的亡魂:太平天国战争的暴力、失序与死亡》一书论述了太平天国战争战时的暴力与死亡以及战后的情感与记忆,无辜的平民是绝对的主角。凭借“底层眼光”这一视角,梅著走出了一条相对中立的太平天国战争研究路径。以余治、张光烈等为代表的地方精英的救时言行和苦难记忆,特别是平民群像展现出的江南下层人士所经历的战争创伤、尸体埋葬和死难纪念,凝聚成“底层眼光”下普通人的战争书写。独特的研究视角和多元的史料运用,使得梅著呈现出精彩的学理识见,却也让它不可避免地渲染上美国中国学研究的理论痕迹,虽然这是梅尔清一再回避的话题。不拘泥于所谓的理论或方法,全力倚靠档案找寻、阐释历史细节,是梅著带给我们的治史新思考。

Tobie Meyer-Fong’s What Remains:Coming to Terms with Civil War in 19 th Century China discusses the wartime violence and death during the Taiping Rebellion, as well as the surge of emotions and memories after the war.Innocent civilians are the absolute protagonists.Viewing from the “underclass vision”,this book shows a relatively neutral way to study the Taiping Rebellion.The words and deeds of local elite gentry represented by Yu Zhi and Zhang Guanglie, as well as their suffering memories, especially the mass portraits of civilians, which display the war wounds, burial and commemoration of the dead experienced by the underclass in Jiangnan, constitute the war writing of ordinary people under the “underclass vision”.The unique research perspective and the diversified use of historical materials endow this book with a wonderful academic cognition.Nevertheless, it is inevitably tainted with the theoretical traces of American Chinese studies, which is a topic repeatedly avoided by Tobie Meyer-Fong.Don’t stick to the so-called theory or method.Try your best to explore and explain the details of history with the support of historical archives.These are new thinkings Tobie Meyer-Fong’s book brings us in studying history.