On Wakeman Ane His Chinese Studies

Frederic Evans Wakeman Jr.,(1937-2006) is an outstanding American expert in Chinese studies, and an American historian, educator and a leading figure in the sphere of American Chinese Studies during the period of the1970s and1980s. He was once chair of the American Historical Association in1992, the director of Institute of East Asian Studies at University of California, Berkeley in1990-2001, chair of the Center for Chinese Studies at University of California, Berkeley in1973-1979, director of the East Asia National Resource Center at University of California, Berkeley in1990-2001, chair of the Committee on Studies of Chinese Civilization in American Council of Learned Societies in1974-1979, president of the Social Science Research Council in1986-1989and chair of the Joint Committee on Chinese Studies, ACLS in1982-1985. He contributed greatly to the Sino-Us academic exchanges as one of the forerunners in the American scholarly communication with the People’s Republic of China. He’s style in research and his historiography and approaches had deeply influenced the Chinese history studies in America. All through his life, Wakeman unswervingly believed that the Chinese civilization is one of the components of human civilization and that studying the Chinese civilization provided the precious experience for studying the human civilization. He took that the most valuable part of his Chinese studies was that he was exploring the unknown and mysterious part of the human history and civilization.Besides ushering the local history in American Chinese history studies, he analyzed one of the most fascinating problems, namely, that in the relations between institutional patterns and their broader, especially international, environments. He went far beyond previous scholarly achievements, ushering in a new stage in Chinese historiography and making a distinctive contribution to comparative and world history. More importantly, through his dynamic study on Chinese history and society for more than forty years, he well-explained what is the Cosmopolitanism, and what is the proper way to treat the western and eastern civilization and what is the direction of human development.Wakeman’s Chinese history study is precious treasure not only of American history studies, but also of Chinese history studies and the world history studies. Through the research on his academic experiences, his academic history and his major historical works, esp. his historiography and approaches, we may have the chance to well analyze his40-year-Chinese history study to help us to trace the historical development of American Chinese history studies and to further understand the trends and dynamic as well as the special perspective of and approaches to American Chinese history studies.For such a representative figure in the sphere of American Chinese Studies, there is so far no monograph or thorough and complete analysis of his historiography and approaches in his Chinese history studies except some essays which only slightly deal with a part of his historical studies in a period and book reviews about Wakeman’s works.Therefore, this dissertation makes a deep analysis of the academic value and significance of Wakeman’s Chinese history studies with the development of the American Chinese history studies. And then, combined with the basic theories and approaches to sociology, social politics, the dissertation bases it’s research on the basic historiography, methodology in Chinese history studies to trace Wakeman’s academic history, his historiography, methodology and the characteristics of his Chinese history studies. The dissertation consists of ten chapters.The first chapter mainly explains the motives for why the author chooses this specific topic for the dissertation, and the significance of Wakeman’s Chinese studies, the present research in Wakeman studies home and abroad, and the basic research logic of the author in this dissertation.The second chapter targets on how Prof. Wakeman started his career in the sphere of American Chinese Studies and what made him so absorbed into Chinese Studies through probing into his historical, family and educational background as well as his personal experience in his childhood and his youth.The third chapter focuses on how young Wakeman started to display unique and enlightening idea in historiography and methodology in Chinese history studies which even went beyond his mentors under the guidance of his academic advisor Joseph R. Levenson through the analysis of his first masterpiece Strangers at the Gate:Social Disorder in South China1839-1861(1966).The fourth chapter primarily analyzed the evolution of local control in late imperial China and the transformation of the ideology during the period of the fall of the Ming and the rise of the Qing regime through the study of his two important works:Conflict and Control in Late Imperial China and The Fall of Imperial China.The fifth chapter emphasizes Wakeman’s concern over contemporary China, including his consideration of the theoretical issues in his Chinese studies as well as his concern about the realistic problems in China, such as the changes in China’s political situations, methodology and approaches in academic studies after the breakout of the Cultural Revolution and the smashing of the "Gang of Four "and China’s opening to the outside world. The dissertation considers that through his lifetime studies on Chinese history, professor Wakeman explained what the proper direction of development is that human beings will strive for.The sixth chapter mainly analyzes Wakeman’s representative book—The Great Enterprise:The Manchu Reconstruction of Imperial Order in Seventeenth-Century China(1985) in which Wakeman analyzed the reason of the fall of the Ming and the rise of the Qing regime from a global view and in which the author analyzed one of the most fascinating problems—the relations between institutional patterns and their broader, especially international, environments. Wakeman pointed out that when facing the same global crisis--the global climate crisis and the international economic crisis, western countries and eastern countries adopted totally different measures to combat difficulties. Because of the different cultural background and cultural value, the result was totally different—China saved herself from the global climate and economic crisis earlier than another western countries during the17th century by adopting a unique political system. It was this system that helped China recovered most quickly than another European countries but failed to resist the invasion of the western powers in the19th century. This well supported the idea that the great adaptability of systems in one such environment may become an impediment to adaptability in another. More importantly, in this study, Wakeman clearly answered the question that the historians had been pondering over: What is the proper way to write historical works?The seventh chapter focuses on the study of the history of Shanghai in Republican China through the analysis of Wakeman’s two works:Policing Shanghai1927-1937(1995) and The Shanghai Badlands:Wartime Terrorism and Urban Crime,1937-1941(1996). In Policing Shanghai1927-1937, from the perspective of the reform on the police force, Wakeman described the Kuomindang government’s attempt to reform the Shanghai city and the government and researched into the existing problems in the economic, social and political systems under the Kuomindang regime in that period; While The Shanghai Badlands:Wartime Terrorism and Urban Crime,1937-1941probed into the most interwoven and complicated relations between the major powers on the "isolated island" and their struggling for the controlling power of Shanghai under the background of the Japanese occupation of Shanghai. And through the study of the politics, economy, culture and foreign relations in Shanghai under the international background during the World War II, Wakeman presented a transforming process of Shanghai under the interwoven western and eastern culture. The final purpose of Wakeman was to analyze the characteristics of social changes in China after the Qing period.In the eighth chapter, Wakeman broadened his study of the history of the nationalist government in the republican era from Shanghai to a nationwide scope by making Dai Li, the leading character in Spymaster. Dai Li and the Chinese Secret Service (2003) the major thread which link all the elements together. In this book, Dai Li, a cruel, ferocious, insidious, capricious, elusive, and cunningly ambiguous monster once dominated a secret world and was, indeed the " Himmler of China" and the evil symbol of the Fascism in China. But ironically, he was the leading figure in Chiang Kai-shek’s government. Through the study of Dai Li, Wakeman unveiled the corrupted and evil side of the Kai-shek’s government and the chaos under his regime. Wakeman finally pointed out that what Dai Li did clearly revealed the essence of Kai-shek’s government:Fascism.The ninth chapter focuses on Wakeman’s historiography and methodology in his studies all through his life. The chapter mainly explains how Wakeman dealt with the situation when history studies were facing the challenges from both social science and post-modernism and answers how Wakeman’s historical narratives could be immortal in the constant changing sphere of history studies. Moreover, the chapter tries to answer that as a leading figure in the sphere of American Chinese Studies, what his new and unique perspective and method is in his Chinese history studiesThe tenth chapter concludes the characteristics and the historical height of Wakeman’s Chinese history studies. The author takes that Wakeman actually had been observing and studying the unsolved mysteries in human history and civilization and exploring the direction of the development of the mankind. In his world view, both eastern and western civilization, with their innate characteristics and values, harmoniously and peacefully exists in the development of the mankind to promote understanding and communication as well as tolerance to each other to form a new type to diversified civilization is the exact meaning of the universal values and Wakeman’s Cosmopolitanism.Howerer, there are still some defects remaining in Wakeman’s studies. The dissertation considers that, due to the special historical reasons, Wakeman, the author of History and Will:Philosophical Perspectives of Mao Tse-tung s thought (1973) didn’t have the chance to visit PR. China to do his research himself and to obtain the first hand resources about Mao Zedong studies, not to say the validity of his resources and thus his efforts to throw light on Mao’s philosophical thoughts was the inadequate philosophical inference and analysis of Mao Tse-tung’s thought—there was no valid evidence proving the direct relationship between Mao’s starting of the Cultural Revolution in his late years and Mao’s knowledge about western and Chinese philosophy in his early years. Therefore, his research was to attempt an ineffective solution.