A Study On The Historiography Of Men Sen

Meng Sen is an authority of the first generation on history of the Qing dynasty in Modern Chinese historiography. He is a pioneer and founder of developing and maturing the study of the Qing history into a real modern discipline. When he failed to excel himself in the official rank in his youth, he began to do some desultory reading on current affairs. Later he went to Japan for studying laws and politics. On returning from abroad, he devoted himself to politics, which proved to be frustrated. In the latter half of his life, he turned his hand to studying history of the Ming and the Qing dynasties, which proved to be extremely successful with many works to his credit and a high prestige in this field.However, owing to the restriction of ideology, different research methods and the historical resources, the study and the assessment of Meng Sen are far from enough. Without enough researches on his historical views and thoughts, many scholars think of him as just a historian of the traditional school, often ignoring his characteristics and methods of studying history. Taking Meng's life, academic activities and the analysis of his representative works as the main line and combining with the developing trend and characteristics of Modern Chinese historiography, this thesis presents an objective and comprehensive inquiry into his academic achievement in the studying of Ming and Qing history, especially the latter. On the basis of understanding Meng's academic contributions in a realistic way, a systematic elucidation and summary of Meng's original historical views and thoughts, as well as his methods and characteristics, will be given in this thesis in order to reveal his specificity and fixate his status and influences in Modern Chinese historiography, thus providing useful lessons and enlightenment for the contemporary academic research.This thesis consists of a preface, a body of four chapters and a conclusion. The preface introduces the significance of this topic, the related researches at home and abroad and the analysis path of this thesis. Chapter one opens out Meng Sen's life and his researches on historiography and discusses how the education, growth environment and his experience in politics influence his following academic life. Chapter two demonstrates Meng Sen's groundbreaking contributions to the study the Ming and the Qing history, especially the latter. Chapter three discusses Meng's unique historical views and thoughts on the turning point of modern historiography. The fourth chapter tries to analysis the characteristics of his studying of history under the comprehensive assessment of his researches on historiography. The conclusion summarizes and evaluates his achievements in the studying of Ming and Qing history.