From Revolution to Modernization

The Paradigmatic Transition in Chinese Historiography in the Reform Era

Bibliographic Data

ID4496034
AuthorsHuaiyin Li (The University of Texas at Austin, corresponding author)
Year2010
Volume49
Issue3
Pages336-360
Publication date2010-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistory and Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0018-2656 • E-ISSN: 1468-2303
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1468-2303.2010.00548.x
OpenAlexW2053430347
LanguageEN
Citations received11

Chinese historiography of modern China in the 1980s and 1990s underwent a paradigmatic transition: in place of the traditional revolutionary historiography that bases its analyses on Marxist methodologies and highlights rebellions and revolutions as the overarching themes in modern Chinese history, the emerging modernization paradigm builds its conceptual framework on borrowed modernization theory and foregrounds top-down, incremental reforms as the main force propelling China's evolution to modernity. This article scrutinizes the origins of the new paradigm in the context of a burgeoning modernization discourse in reform-era China. It further examines the fundamental divides between the two types of historiography in their respective constructions of master narratives and their different approaches to representing historical events in modern China. Behind the prevalence of the modernization paradigm in Chinese historiography is Chinese historians' unchanged commitment to serving present political needs by interpreting the past

Art · China · Context (archaeology) · Historiography · Literature · Marxist philosophy · Modernity · Modernization theory · Narrative · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Chinese history and philosophy · History · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies

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