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The Biographical Approach to Chinese History: A Symposium: Preliminary Reflections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Howard L. Boorman
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Extract

The distinctive, albeit controversial, role of the individual in history has given rise in the West to the development of biography as a special field of literature and historical writing. In China, the writing of biography has for many centuries also occupied a special position, a position shaped both by the forms and purposes of Chinese historical writing and by the fabric of Chinese society. The papers of this symposium, presented originally at the 1961 annual meeting of the American Historical Association, offer a preliminary assessment of the place of biographical writing in China and may serve to suggest avenues for further fruitful study and research.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , August 1962 , pp. 453 - 455
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1962

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References

1 See Garraty, John A., The Nature of Biography (New York, 1957)Google Scholar, and bibliographical citations therein. Clifford, James L. ed., Biography as an Art (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, Galaxy Books, 1962)Google Scholar offers a collection of selected Western criticism of biography from 1560–1960.

2 See Twitchett, D. C., “Chinese Biographical Writing,” in the symposium volume edited by Beasley, W. G. and Pulleyblank, E. G., Historians of China and Japan (London, 1961), pp. 95–114.Google Scholar

3 For a recent review of the observations of a major historical philosopher, see Rickman, H. P., Meaning in History: W. Dilthey's Thoughts on History and Society (London, 1961), Ch. II, “The Historical Relevance of Autobiography and Biography,” pp. 83–112.Google Scholar

4 See Hook, Sidney, The Hero in History (Boston, 1955), especially Ch. IX, “The Eventful Man and the Event-Making Man,” pp. 151–183.Google Scholar

5 See Boorman, , “The Study of Contemporary Chinese Politics: Some Remarks on Retarded Development,” World Politics, XII, 4 (July 1960), 594–5.Google Scholar