Mirror to Revolution: Early Marxist Images of Chinese History

1974 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arif Dirlik

Historical materialism entered Chinese thought as part of the new wave of socialism during the New Culture movement. By the late 1920's, during the ebb of communism as a political movement, it had gained a foothold in the consciousness of many Chinese intellectuals. Its application to the analysis of Chinese history reached its peak in the “social history controversy” of the late twenties and early thirties.1 After the mid-thirties interest in the Marxist discussion of history dwindled, not reaching a comparable degree of intensity until its revival after 1949.

1982 ◽  
Vol 90 ◽  
pp. 286-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ursula Richter

When in 1931 the late Arthur W. Hummel published his annotated translation of Gu Jiegang's Preface to the Gushi-bian, only the first two volumes of this opus magnum in modern Chinese historiography had appeared. Yet, Hummel recognized the nascent work as “an admirable introduction to the technique and temper of Chinese scholarship” of the post-May-Fourth “Chinese Renaissance” era, and its then youthful editor as an historian who, although he had never studied abroad or with a western teacher, was able to conduct such a large-scale disputation on ancient Chinese history “in the most rigorous scientific manner” owing to his “firm grasp of the best traditions of native scholarship, together with what he had learned of western methods.” Most of the leaders of the “New Culture Movement” (yet another name for the intellectual tide around May Fourth) subsequently contributed to the Gushi-bian, the spiritus rector of which Gu remained, although he had to ask colleagues for help with the editing.


2021 ◽  
pp. 095269512110037
Author(s):  
Jim Berryman

First published in 1948, Frederick Antal’s Florentine Painting and Its Social Background was an important milestone in anglophone art history. Based on European examples, including Max Dvořák, it sought to understand art history’s relationship to social and intellectual history. When Antal, a Hungarian émigré, arrived in Britain in 1933, he encountered an inward-looking discipline preoccupied with formalism and connoisseurship; or, as he phrased it, art historians of ‘the older persuasion’ ignorant of ‘the fruitful achievements of modern historical research’. Despite its considerable scholarship and erudition, Antal’s book was not warmly received, largely because he had used historical materialism to understand the production of art and the development of styles. Antal’s class-based account of the social position of the artist and the role of the patron in determining the emergence of early Renaissance styles was especially controversial. However, although Marxist analysis was used to challenge the assumptions of Anglo art history, it was not Antal’s intention to weaken art history’s disciplinary autonomy. With historical materialism, he sought to place art history on a firmer historical footing. Most importantly, this approach was compatible with the discipline’s Central European tradition, where art-historical scholarship was framed by questions of method and based on broad historical research. Without defending its more deterministic features, this article supports a re-evaluation of Antal’s book, as an important forerunner of interdisciplinary art scholarship. It considers why Antal’s legacy has not endured, despite the ‘social history of art’ enjoying widespread acceptance in English-speaking art history in later decades.


2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhang Jinguang †

Abstract The entire course of ancient Chinese history has centered on state power, which dominated and shaped the basic picture of social history. The key to Chinese state power has been the state ownership of land, and based on this we can divide the social forms of ancient China into four successive periods: the period of yishe 邑社時代 or village societies (Western Zhou Dynasty and the Spring and Autumn Period); the period of official communal system 官社時代 (Warring States Period to Qin Dynasty to the early Han Dynasty); the period of half official communal system 半官社時代 (Han to Tang Dynasty); and the period of state vs. individual peasants 國家個體小農時代 (Song to Qing Dynasty).


This collection of essays, drawn from a three-year AHRC research project, provides a detailed context for the history of early cinema in Scotland from its inception in 1896 till the arrival of sound in the early 1930s. It details the movement from travelling fairground shows to the establishment of permanent cinemas, and from variety and live entertainment to the dominance of the feature film. It addresses the promotion of cinema as a socially ‘useful’ entertainment, and, distinctively, it considers the early development of cinema in small towns as well as in larger cities. Using local newspapers and other archive sources, it details the evolution and the diversity of the social experience of cinema, both for picture goers and for cinema staff. In production, it examines the early attempts to establish a feature film production sector, with a detailed production history of Rob Roy (United Films, 1911), and it records the importance, both for exhibition and for social history, of ‘local topicals’. It considers the popularity of Scotland as an imaginary location for European and American films, drawing their popularity from the international audience for writers such as Walter Scott and J.M. Barrie and the ubiquity of Scottish popular song. The book concludes with a consideration of the arrival of sound in Scittish cinemas. As an afterpiece, it offers an annotated filmography of Scottish-themed feature films from 1896 to 1927, drawing evidence from synopses and reviews in contemporary trade journals.


2008 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-7

In this opening issue of volume 31 we are presented with both nuanced and bold entry into several long enduring issues and topics stitching together the interdisciplinary fabric comprising ethnic studies. The authors of these articles bring to our attention social, cultural and economic issues shaping lively discourse in ethnic studies. They also bring to our attention interpretations of the meaning and significance of ethnic cultural contributions to the social history of this nation - past and present.


2020 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
pp. 656-676
Author(s):  
Igor V. Omeliyanchuk

The article examines the main forms and methods of agitation and propagandistic activities of monarchic parties in Russia in the beginning of the 20th century. Among them the author singles out such ones as periodical press, publication of books, brochures and flyers, organization of manifestations, religious processions, public prayers and funeral services, sending deputations to the monarch, organization of public lectures and readings for the people, as well as various philanthropic events. Using various forms of propagandistic activities the monarchists aspired to embrace all social groups and classes of the population in order to organize all-class and all-estate political movement in support of the autocracy. While they gained certain success in promoting their ideology, the Rights, nevertheless, lost to their adversaries from the radical opposition camp, as the monarchists constrained by their conservative ideology, could not promise immediate social and political changes to the population, and that fact was excessively used by their opponents. Moreover, the ideological paradigm of the Right camp expressed in the “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality” formula no longer agreed with the social and economic realities of Russia due to modernization processes that were underway in the country from the middle of the 19th century.


Author(s):  
Miguel Alarcão

Textualizing the memory(ies) of physical and cultural encounter(s) between Self and Other, travel literature/writing often combines subjectivity with documental information which may prove relevant to better assess mentalities, everyday life and the social history of any given ‘timeplace’. That is the case with Growing up English. Memories of Portugal 1907-1930, by D. J. Baylis (née Bucknall), prefaced by Peter Mollet as “(…) a remarkably vivid and well written observation of the times expressed with humour and not little ‘carinho’. In all they make excellent reading especially for those of us interested in the recent past.” (Baylis: 2)


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