How Chinese Historiography in the Twentieth Century Is Narrated:An Exploration of the Objectivity in the Writing of Academic History

On the whole,the narrative keynotes of the Chinese historiography in the twentieth century experienced the following three phases:the narrative led by the school of textual criticism before 1945,the narrative basically centered on the materialist historical studies from 1949 to the end of the 1980s,and the narrative with the total trend towards the school of textual criticism.There are four fundamental factors influencing the narrative of the academic history:the ideological stand,the sectarian bias caused by different approaches,academic tastes with strong individual color,and the most important,the methodology narcissism peculiar to different schools.The objective narrative of the academic history should be the one taking account of the historical idea,material and method.The extent of objectivity that a historical narrative of the modern Chinese historiography could reach is just determined by the extent in balancing the several contradictions such as the material and idea,textual criticism and interpretation,thoughts and fact,macroscopic and microcosmic,as well as abstraction and concreteness.In the final analysis,the ultimate possibility of objective narrative of academic history lies in the fair mechanism of communication,estimation and comparison.