Mirroring the Past: The Writing And Use of History in Imperial China Review

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Mirroring the Past: The Writing And Use of History in Imperial China ReviewIn terms of bare historical facts, I would judge, the body of history emanating from China is more extensive than that of any other political entity. Ongoing archaeological discoveries in China continually demonstrate the accuracy of much of the traditional Chinese history. Outside of quibbles concerning specific dating of events, there are fewer and fewer disputes about the overall veracity of the given historical record.
The historiography of China (and not only that of China), is another issue entirely. Ng and Wang make it clear that the accepted path for Chinese historians was in using a revered past to justify and promote the present. Those who used it to denigrate the present did so at their great peril - often resulting in imprisonment, with execution even more likely. In imperial China history was largely the prerogative of government officials with private histories being frequently suppressed and the authors subject to various proscriptions, if not outright persecution. Nevertheless, history itself was nearly always highly regarded by the various dynastic governments of China, with the gathering and publishing of dynastic histories of previous dynasties among the first activities of any new dynasty. In fact, the accumulation of historical information concerning the current dynasty and reign was usually an ongoing activity under the various Chinese emperors. Most frequently, the records were sealed to prevent contamination, but this was not to say that the historians were totally free to express their views on the appropriateness of the current actions, and few did. Emperors not infrequently impinged upon the gathering of data, and even had records unsealed to "rewrite" the information therein.
It should be noted, however, that there appears to be little evidence that the basic historical events were falsified. The motivations and justifications of the events, however, were frequently subject to biased, or safe interpretations justifying the outcomes by the present powers. Subsequently, future dynastic historians might well re-interpret the motivations and justifications to suit their own present. All of this is not to say that historians in other cultures have been free from similar biases, but the official nature of Chinese dynastic histories have presented us with significant issues in this area. While there were many private histories written (despite proscriptions), the usual inability of these private historians to gain access to dynastic records and the lack of professionalism among many of them downgrade our ability to assess their overall veracity.
Ng and Wang have done a superlative job in laying out the history of historians and the writing of history in Imperial China. In the process, they have made clear the constraints and obligations Chinese historians faced throughout the recorded history of dynastic China. These issues are of critical importance to anyone attempting to read Chinese history, whether from original sources (where available), Chinese-language publications of these sources, or translations of them into other languages. Without an understanding of these issues and the historians' responses to them,the reader of Chinese histories will be left without the necessary tools for their evaluation.
Ng and Wang organize their book chronologically from the age of Confucius to nearly the end of the Qing dynasty in the Nineteenth Century. Importantly, they discuss the nuances of Chinese historiography, the historians efforts at determining truth from the records they had available, their philosophies of history, and how history was (and is) used, not only to "mirror" the past, but to cast light on the present.
Mirroring the Past is a five-star book: it should be read and treasured by any student of Chinese, as well as other histories.Mirroring the Past: The Writing And Use of History in Imperial China Overview

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