On Levenson's Perspectives on China's Modern History —Some Thoughts on His Confucian China and Its Modern Fate

Levenson was the famous scholar who studied Chinese culture and history in the United States in the 20th century. His Confucian China and Its Modern Fate gave macroscopic studies and researches to the modern fate of Confucian China by using special narrating way and fully provided his perspectives on modern Chinese history. Firstly, the changes of modern China resulted from the Western invasion, which also made an impact on the Confucian school. Such changes as the establishment of modern science and occupations which were (lacking) in modern Chinese thoughts and the declining of Confucian traditions in modern China were only made possible when such an invasion cut off all these Chinese traditions. Secondly, the changes in modern Chinese thoughts gave rise to the declining of Confucianism. In modern China, Confucianism changed from the nation-wide accepted values to China's national spirit and soul, from classics and historical quotations to materials for historical researches and exhibits in museums, from the (vocabulary) of Confucian China enriched by Western one to the language of Confucian China radically changed, and was finally overthrown. Another cause for the unavoidable declining of Confucianism was that the tension between Confucianism and the monarchy, which had been what kept both vital throughout Chinese (history,) was broken off in modern China. Accompanying the changes was the tension and conflict between (tradition) and modernity and history and values, which leaded to the contradiction between the safeguarding of the history of Confucian China and the acceptance of modern values from the West. However, to safeguard the history of Confucian China must be gradually at some sacrifice to Confucian values. Similarly, to accept the modern values rationally to make China strong must give up some of the traditions and values of (Confucian China.) Thirdly, the rise of Communist China doomed the outcome of declining Confucianism. It was the (conclusion) that Levenson reached after systematically observing how Confucianism declined in modern China. (Furthermore), he believed that Communist China was neither the transmigration of traditional China nor the (equivalent )of Communist Russia. Fourthly, Levenson's research into modern China featured two characteristics. One was his works about China's modern history being his own text of expressing his thoughts by emphasizing the subjectivity in his (historical) cognition, and the other was his way to do research on history of thought, which was of help to his further study of Chinese tradition and the inner world of modern Chinese to profoundly interpret the changes of modern China. Fifthly, the formation of Levenson's perspectives on China's modern history was influenced by three (factors:) New Historicism represented by the chronologist school and the theory of American presentist (historiography;) the Modern Theories that rose in western countries after World War Ⅱ; and some hypotheses of Western scholars that the Chinese tradition lacked modernity. Levenson's perspectives on China's modern (history) could find some expression in his earlier publication named Liang Ch'I-Ch'ao and the Mind of Modern China.