Research On Tang Degang's Oral History

Tang Degang (1920-2009) is a famous Chinese-American historian. In his childhood, he has a good family education, being deeply influenced by traditional Chinese classical literature. In his youth, he studied at National Central University and taught by famous masters such as Gu Jiegang, Guo Tingyi, Miu Fenglin and so on. With these, on one hand, he made a solid academic foundation; on the other hand, he cultivated a strong interest in Chinese Modern history. Later, he went abroad and studied in the prestigious Columbia University, where he accepted the good training for the Western Modern History. It happened that he attended the oral history work in Chinese Oral History faculty of Columbia University. During that time, with his assistance, Hu Shi, Li Zongren, Gu Weijun and etc wrote their personal conduct Oral History, publishing The Memoirs of Hu Shih, Li Zongren Hui Yi Lu. Not only was he the first Chinese scholar engaging in modern oral history research, but also he explored, developed and perfected a set of theory and methodology for Modern oral history through his practice in long-term research. His series of theory not only made a great contribution to the study of China Modern history, but also strongly promoted the developments of Modern oral history across the Taiwan Strait. It placed an important role in the field of China Modern Oral History.Since Tand Degang died of disease, many memorial articles have been successively published in Academia, discussing his academic achievements in research field of Oral History, China Modern History and so on. However, till now, there was no comprehensive and in-deep discuss about his new theories and methods and a series of important research result. In view of this, this paper is on the basic of the Tang's major academic work in the field of Oral History. Through sorting out and analyzing these academic results, it comprehensively summaries his theories and methods in the Oral history study, and objectively evaluates his status and influence on the field of Modern Oral History.There are four parts in this paper expert for Introduction. The first part describes the whole life of Tang Degang, and talks about the long history of his scholarly family and the succession from his tutors, and analyzes its influence on the Tang's academic life. Then it reveals the reason that Tang Degang engaged in research on Modern Oral History. The second one makes his famous oral history works--- The Memoirs of Hu Shih, Li Zongren Hui Yi Lu, as important clue. It sorts out the practice process of his oral history study and analyzes the important historical value and academic value of these works. The third focus on the construction on the theories and methods of Oral History of Tang's. The last part is conclusion, which summaries the whole paper. What's more, it makes an objective evaluation to Tang's academic result and his influence on the field of Oral History study.