Modern Scholars Of Chinese And Western Transportation History

The history of Sino-foreign communications, a branch of modern history rising in the early 20th century with considerable development in the past few decades, has shown a great effect on the development of modern history. Although it is a special branch of history, there is no systematic study on its origin, evolution, research and position in modern history. This being the case, this article tends to deal with the following aspects. First, from the perspective of historiography, this article makes an overall review of the research practices of several typical scholars in the early 20th century. Second, on the basis of the theoretical thinking and the sorting out of history materials, this study outlines the history of Sino-foreign communications and reveals the scholars' cultural values and the consequent influence on this branch and even on the whole field. Third, this article summarizes the features and trend of this branch, and evaluates its functions and position in the development of modern history. In addition to Introduction, there are altogether six chapters in this article.In Introduction, the author reviews the research history of this study, and then makes a comprehensive analysis of the following three elements: the general process of the history of Sino-foreign communications, discipline formation, and the characteristics. The history of Sino-foreign communications, as a special and independent branch of history, appears fairly late, and is gradually formed with staged characteristics. Before the May 4th Movement, this branch developed relatively slow. In the period between the 1920s and 1940s, it got substantial development with somewhat fixed research objects and scopes, a group of professionals, and a series of discipline-oriented research methods. Since then this discipline, that is, the history of Sino-foreign communications has, gradually been accepted. Its characteristics can be summarized as follows: (a) The main research focuses on textual criticism, with the emphasis on sorting out of materials, (b) The significance of research methods is attached to textual criticism, and new modern factors are also involved, (c) Research orientation tends to be specified. More and more attention is paid to Sino-foreign cultural transformation. Meanwhile, a good many other researchers are taking an active part in the construction of this subject and have played an important part in promoting the development of this subject during this period.Chapter One discusses the historical conditions for the rising of the research in the history of Sino-foreign communications as well as Shen Zengzhi's contribution. As a discipline of modern leaning, the research of the history of Sino-foreign communications dates back to the later 19th century. It resulted form many factors that has an effect on each other. First, it is an aftermath of the severe social realities after the Opium War.Second, it is the continuation of the research atmosphere of extraterritorial and northwestregions in the late Qing Dynasty. Third, it is also the direct result of the stimulation of sinology in Europe and Japan. In the transitional period, when the research on the orientation of Sino-foreign communications in extraterritorial and northwest regions was promoted, the scholar who got the largest achievements is Shen Zengzhi. Dao Yi Zhi L ue Guang Zheng is the first specific work studying the geography of South-east Asia. Unlike the old works, which only touched on the northwest, this book starts to care about southwest and southeast Asia, thus extending the academic vision of the research in the borderlands. As for the content, it begins to deal with the studies on the communication of religions and cultures. Besides, it tries to draw on the materials concerned and research methods of Sinology in western countries, thus initially forming his research characteristics of Sino-foreign cultural exchange. In the field of the history of Sino-foreign communications, and especially in the history of south-east Asia, Shen Zengzhi has playe...