The Sage Handbook of Interpreting Chinese History

Kristin Stapleton is a Professor of History at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. Her research focuses on urban history, particularly the history of governance and social change, as well as the creation and influence of representations of historical events in works of literature. She is the author of Civilizing Chengdu: Chinese Urban Reform, 1895-1937 (Harvard Asia Center, 2000), Fact in Fiction: 1920s China and Ba Jin’s Family (Stanford, 2016), and The Modern City in Asia (Cambridge, 2022), among other works. She is a member of the Editorial Board of Twentieth-Century China and a participant in the Global Urban History Project.Xin Fan teaches at ShanghaiTech University in China. He is a professor of history and vice dean at the Institute of Humanities. 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 is an Associate Professor of History at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Driven by her interest in how the transnational movement of people, ideas, and institutions has informed the making of modern China, her main areas of research are Chinese intellectual history and the history of Chinese migration. She is the author of Realistic Revolution: Contesting Chinese History, Culture, and Politics after 1989 (Cambridge, 2019) and has held visiting positions at Boston University, Peking University, the Academia Sinica, and the University of California, Berkeley. Her current book project examines the “return” of ethnic Chinese students from Southeast Asia to the PRC during the 1950s and 1960s.

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.

• Introduction - Kristin Stapleton, Els Van Dongen, Xin FanPart I. Overviews and Framing ChaptersChapter 1. The Daotong, Genealogy, and History: On the Sources of Chinese Intellectual History’s Narrative Framework - Ge ZhaoguangChapter 2. Conceptualizing the Foreign Relations of Late Imperial China: The Interpretative Entanglement of Two Worldviews, 1880s–2020s - Yuanchong WangChapter 3. The Politics of Constructing the History of China’s Foreign Relations in the PRC - Tansen SenChapter 4. Visions of History in Chinese Constitutional Law - Egas Bernard Bender De Moniz BandeiraChapter 5. Corporeality and Conceptions of History: How Gender Changed the Experience of the Past and Present - Louise EdwardsChapter 6. Historical Imaginations of High Qing Emperors in Sinophone Popular Cultures - Fei-Hsien WangPart II. History in the Late-Qing EraChapter 7. Chinese Historical Thinking and Civil Service Examinations in the Late 19th Century - Thomas H. C. LeeChapter 8. “Official Periodicals” (Gazetteers, Gazettes, and Directories) and Qing History - Emily MokrosChapter 9. Publishing and Communication in Late Qing China - Natascha GentzChapter 10. Memorials and Works of Commemoration in the Late Qing Period - Charles DesnoyersChapter 11. History in Late-Qing Popular Culture - Igor ChabrowskiPart III. History in the Republican EraChapter 12. The Development of the History Profession and its Relation to the State - Xin FanChapter 13. History Textbooks and Historical Education in Republican China - Jenny Huangfu DayChapter 14. The Hope and Fear in Joining the Modern World: Changing Frameworks of Historical Analysis in Late Qing and Republican China - Tzeki HonChapter 15. Displaying History: Constructing National Heritage in Modern China - Peter ZarrowChapter 16. Memorials and Commemorative Structures in the Republican Era - Linh VuChapter 17. National Humiliation and National Pride: History in Popular Culture during the Republican Period - Yajun MoPart IV. History in the Maoist EraChapter 18. Changing Frameworks of Historical Analysis - Huaiyu ChenChapter 19. Textbooks and History Education in the Maoist Era (1942-1978) - Marc Andre MattenChapter 20. Ethnography as History—Chinese Ethnologists and the Construction of the Marxist Periodization Scheme of Chinese History - Xiaorong HanChapter 21. Radical Pasts, Maoist Futures: History in the Cultural Revolution - Zachary ScarlettChapter 22. Accusations and Confessions in Case Files - Man ZhangPart V.History in the Reform EraChapter 23. Chinese Historiography during the Era of Reform and Opening - Susanne Weigelin-SchwiedrzikChapter 24.Rethinking China’s Past after China’s Rise: Chinese Intellectuals and Modern China - David OwnbyChapter 25. Using the Past to Serve the Present - The Role of History in Post-Mao Chinese Nationalism - Robert WeatherleyChapter 26. Museums and the Making of Public History in Post-Mao China: Reimagining the Chinese Nation in the Overseas Chinese Museum - Cangbai WangChapter 27. Narrating History in Reform Era Chinese Cinema - Yiyang HouPart VI.Border HistoriesChapter 28. From China’s Frontier to Frontier China - Xiaoyuan LiuChapter 29. “Rediscovering” 2-28: Knowledge Production, Memorialization, and the Emergence of Taiwanese Nationalism - Evan DawleyChapter 30. Historical Memory in Hong Kong: Agency under the shadow of empires - Gina Anne TamChapter 31. History in Xinjiang: The Changing Nature and Resiliency of Historical Practices from the Late Qing to the Present - Sandrine CatrisChapter 32. Popular Historical Narratives of Overseas Migration - Steven B. Miles