The History Of Liu Shanlis’ Historiography

Different schools of Chinese history in the early of 20th century were progressive. And Liu Shanii belongs to one of them, named Southern School which represented by Liu Yizheng, and Liu Shanii inherited the spirit of this school. With making use of rich literature and unearthed material, absorbing the strengths of Western historiography, he made great distinct achievements in ancient Chinese history, Chinese national history, world history and theory of history. In addition to do the analysis on papers and books made by Liu Shanii, this paper also make comparisons with other papers and books which in the same period, in this way, we can see his achievements clearly.Liu Shanii had outstanding achievements in the research of dynastic history. His works as follows, Ancient History of China, Chinese History III:History of Sui and Wudai, History of Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasty, etc. Apart from the political and military of history, he also majored in the economic, social and cultural aspects. The perspective of historical research had greatly expanded by his work. Not only earlier than other similar monographs, but also had so many creative views in history research. Liu Shanli’s solid theoretical foundation in the old school and rational spirit were showed in the ancient history debate with Gu Jiegang, permeating through his ancient history research. For example, in the research of Sui Dynasty, he had many insights on the policy and the Transportation System of Recruitment and Setting Warehouse which was set by Emperor Wen of Sui. This theory contributed to rehabilitate and had a far-reaching influence which was also accepted by the regime from Tang to Song Dynasty. He also had deep research on the ethnic history of ancient China, writing the book named Ancient Chinese Ethnic History and other papers. Based on the characteristics of Chinese history, he introduced the history of the other nationalities by setting the Han nationality on the main line, but he developed a special chapter to Mongolian who built up an unified empire. In this discussion, Liu respected all of the fraternal nation. Apart from clarifying the basic situation, development and change of various nations, he emphasized on the communication and integration among of the different people, and to some extent it had a high value of this study. Another important features of his research was that he selected the historical materials carefully and demonstrated logically. Furthermore, he quoted varied dialogues to improve his books’readability. Liu also made a contribution to historical theory. He introduced Chinese traditional historiography and combined with Western historiography. Although it did not reach the height as Liu Yizheng’s The Essence of the History of China, even not focus on translation from the Western works into Chinese like He Bingsong, he tried to optimize between the traditional Chinese historiography and western theory. Due to Liu’s short academic life, a few of his works were preserved. Therefore, his influence is limited, and there is not much of research about him. This thesis attempts to review and demonstrate the values of Liu’s study.Due to the short academic life of Liu, few his works were preserved, and his influence is limited because of that, and there are few scholars to do research about him. In general, this thesis attempts to study the various parts of the above points so as to fully reflect the contents and values of his historical study.