For example, how did rural etiquette change? Duan Zhiqiang: I first learned about "history" from my grandfather.
What will the first global history written by Chinese people from their own perspective look like? "Global History from China", led by Professor Ge Zhaoguang and gathering the passion, ambition and talent of more than two dozen scholars, gives the answer.
Many history books in the past first only saw emperors, generals, elites and geniuses, forgetting the general public and ordinary people; then they only saw the changes of various people, forgetting the changes in nature, environment and material; and finally they only grasped the changes of nature, environment and material. understand the truth, but ignore the story. This history book about 3 million years of global human civilization, as historian Xu Zhuoyun commented, is "with a broad vision, revisiting the past and thinking about the future", and is intended to "promote everyone's understanding that China is a part of the world, for you and me. He is not only a member of China’s cultural circle, but also a member of the world’s great cultural circle.” I also hope that it will be as the chief editor Ge Zhaoguang hopes, "We should have the consciousness of world citizens. This is the meaning of global history." The most important thing is to replace the "political view of history" with "'civilizational view of history'".
The person who started the conversation with us about this history book was Duan Zhiqiang, a historian at Fudan University and one of the team’s main creators.
"Global History from China", edited by Ge Zhaoguang, Yunnan People's Publishing House
The book "Global History from China" presented to you was originally a set of audio programs launched by "Looking at Ideals" from 2019 to 2021. Now it has been organized, supplemented and revised, and is available to readers in the form of a paper book. .
Shang Shufang: When I was listening to the audio program, I thought you were an older person.
Duan Zhiqiang: Everyone says so. Maybe it has something to do with what I'm talking about. People always think that the person who talks about history should be an old man.
Shang Shufang: Did you choose you as the program anchor because of your voice characteristics?
Duan Zhiqiang: It should be by chance. The platform initially hired professional dubbing, but after listening to it, everyone felt that the person reading and the content were separated. It was not like a person telling the story, but a "machine" "broadcasting" the story. Should each author be asked to do the recording himself? Nope either. The audience has just adapted to the voice of one author, and then changes to another author, which prevents the audience from establishing an emotional connection with the program. Just when everyone was struggling, I happened to pass by, and they asked me to record a trial first. As soon as the recording was completed, everyone said, it’s up to you to record everything.
This is quite interesting, I like to try all kinds of strange things.
Shangshufang: Have you never recorded an audio program before?
Duan Zhiqiang: Not only have I never recorded an audio program, I have also never participated in such a project. I am not a student of global history, but Teacher Ge told me about such a plan and asked me if I wanted to participate, so I did.
Duan Zhiqiang: There are many authors in this project, each of whom has profound academic attainments. However, as historical writing for society, the academic difficulty cannot be high or low, and the basic framework and style also need to be unified. The authors are distributed all over the country. I am close to Teacher Ge, and he can give guidance on how to do it at any time, which is equivalent to providing a reference for everyone.
Shang Shufang: In terms of workload, you not only provided reference templates, but also made great efforts.
Duan Zhiqiang: The reason why I participate in writing more is that it is not easy to find suitable authors. You have to find a professional scholar who understands this aspect, and who has the time and also likes this style of writing. Not only does he like it, but he must also be good at it. Just liking it but not writing well is not enough. If you apply these conditions, not many will be suitable. So, I am not only a "guinea pig" but also a "substitute".
The leader of this project is of course Mr. Ge. He set up a framework, divided it into paragraphs, and carefully revised every part of the submitted content several times. When I was studying, he often told us that you should learn to write articles with two pens, one for academic papers and one for popular articles. Teacher Ge's writing has always been very smooth and unpretentious.
Go to the study room: Will you feel any discomfort when you broadcast other people's content?
Duan Zhiqiang: No. When the manuscript finally reaches me, I will process it. One is to replace some literate words with colloquial expressions, or with words that are more in line with my language habits, so that they feel more comfortable to read. The second is some adjustments to sentence patterns to make it more suitable for audio programs. For example, when writing, you can use inverted sentences, putting the predicate and object in the front and the subject in the back, creating a beautiful interlacing effect. But it’s best not to do this when making audio, as the audience will be confused.
My processing is purely technical and does not change the meaning.
Shang Shufang: This time from audio products to books, it is a process in reverse.
Duan Zhiqiang: Yes, not many. The supplementary part is mainly written by Teacher Ge himself. When people listen to audio programs, they pass by as soon as they listen. But when the book is there and everyone flips it over and over, it is easy to find that there is a missing piece. So, Teacher Ge made up for it. The audio program focuses on "companionship", just like students listening to lectures. Real and systematic learning requires hard work after class. That’s what publishing a book is about.
In fact, there are stories every day in history, but when written as history, stories are sometimes flattened and condensed, and living creatures become specimens. There is no doubt that we do not have the ability to bring the dead back to life, nor can we pay attention to every detail. However, we want to make history as alive as possible and make it truly a "global" and "human" story.
Shang Shufang: From the audio to the book, one feature has not only remained unchanged, but has become amplified, and that is the storytelling of this global history.
Duan Zhiqiang: In the general preface, Teacher Ge talked about why we should tell stories and why we should work hard to tell stories well. I would like to add some additional opinions of my own.
Stories can be divided into broad and narrow senses. Broadly speaking, everything people talk about, whether it is theory, historical data or literature, is different in appearance, but the core is a story, but the degree of literaryness and drama is different. When we talk about global integration and exchange, it is also a story in itself. We cannot hear the word story and think it is false. Story is actually our understanding and narrative of the world. "Story" in the narrow sense is what we often say. History is a story, and writing history is telling stories, which means showing the attractive side of historical events. In this set of global history, we often use stories in this narrow sense to introduce a topic, exaggerate the truth we want to tell, and even adjust the atmosphere.
However, historical facts and storytelling are not antagonistic. We will not dilute or distort historical facts just because we want to tell stories. When writing in the name of history, we have a responsibility to tell readers where the boundaries of the story lie. For example, we often extract some particularly dramatic episodes in history and put them together into a story, but at the same time we also tell everyone that these episodes were selected by us. Because many times, history has multiple explanations, that is, more than one possibility. History does not have only one narrative or explanation.
Go to the study: This reminds me of something. I once invited a historian to share his new book with readers. When he shared it, he said that studying history is like a jigsaw puzzle, where many pieces must be assembled into a complete pattern, that is, a complete historical event. During the interaction, a primary school student asked: What should be used to fill the "gaps" between the fragments on the complete pattern?
Duan Zhiqiang: This kid has really played with puzzles, but the professor who made the analogy may not necessarily have played with them. A historical event, such as who was beheaded and the scene of the beheading, may not be recorded in historical materials. When later generations talk about this matter, there will indeed be an element of imagination. Talking about global history cannot avoid this situation. But generally speaking, the research and writing methods of global history and general history are different. The difference is that global history connects the most macroscopic historical scenes and the most subtle historical themes, and it is not necessarily necessary to use imagination to fill the gaps between the two. For example, if I talk about a major palace coup, the historical record only contains two or three lines, so I need a lot of imagination to fill in the details. However, although the picture of global history is grand, for example, I said that corn originated in the Americas and then spread to all parts of the world. This is a grand picture, right? But we have found conclusive information on the spread of corn around the world. This is extremely subtle, so subtle that we don’t need to use our imagination to fill it in. Therefore, global history is not about piecing together all the fragments to form a big picture. Instead, it is about selecting a small part of it, such as corn, and trying to piece together some clues.
Shang Shufang: I think the study of global history is the largest and most complete picture.
Duan Zhiqiang: If this is the case, global history will become all history, covering all historical research, and other historical research can be closed down, right? Who has the ability to study such history? nobody. Therefore, Teacher Ge repeatedly emphasized in the general preface that historians must realize that they are not omnipotent.
Global history research generally adopts two methods. One is to select a number of themes of global significance in history; the other is to use global history as a perspective to see things that everyone already knows. For example, scholars who study political history may find that many systems are comparable on a global scale, or that there is a process of spread or influence, and they can conduct political history research from a global history perspective.
Of course, the first method is more commonly used. In the book, we selected themes such as climate, environment, and disease, and strung them together into a global history through some important material and cultural phenomena. This is what we do. In fact, we want to provide you with a large global history framework.
Going to the study: It's like picking out a few threads from a mess. This is your skill.
Duan Zhiqiang: This is Teacher Ge’s design. For example, he determines which topics to talk about, how many episodes each topic is divided into, and even goes so far as to tell the author what to talk about in each episode. Of course, as experts in their respective fields, the authors can put forward their own opinions, and after discussion, they can also replace Teacher Ge's outline. This is no problem. But these themes to be set cannot be removed. However, in the actual writing process, most authors write according to an outline. Because there is a detailed outline, even I can "make up the numbers" in it.
The ultimate purpose of planning this set of things is to promote everyone's understanding that China is a part of the world. You and I are not only members of China's cultural circle, but also members of the world's larger cultural circle. What we have to do is not only compare China to the outside world, which is the opposite, but placing China in the world is a matter that includes large and small circles.
Go to the study room: When talking about this set of books, one topic cannot be avoided: how can we popularize it among others? Everyone in the front is a scholar, and everyone in the back is the public. This set of global history is a good popular reading book on popular history.
Duan Zhiqiang: Actually, I don’t like the term “popularization” very much.
The word "popularization" presupposes that historians understand history better than the public, and that the public are novices and need historians to tell them condescendingly. However, history is obviously created by the public, so why do you think the public does not understand history? If historians were sent to 1,000 years ago, they might starve to death; if farmers were sent to 1,000 years ago, they might be able to survive. Once, I visited an ancient sunken ship that was salvaged from the seabed and found that the cargo was packed into special shapes. I especially wanted to find someone who is doing shipping today to visit with me. He could tell me what the principles of shipping cargo are.
I think historical writing is about sharing and dissemination, and it is not necessarily all about “popularization”.
Shang Shufang: Speaking of which, I just want to ask: Those extras in the audio program, which are the opinions and questions from the audience, are particularly interesting and seem to be very interesting. Will this remain in the book?
Duan Zhiqiang: Not only are they easy, some are even very challenging. There will be quite a few reservations in the book.
Shang Shufang: Which questions impressed you and found them particularly challenging?
Duan Zhiqiang: The first question is very challenging. When talking about Chinese race and culture, we introduced the research results of molecular anthropology, especially the story of the African grandmother, who said that mitochondrial DNA can only be inherited from the maternal line, and how to explain human beings by working backwards through mitochondria. have a common origin. Immediately, an audience member left a message in the background: "Nature" magazine recently published a paper stating that mitochondrial inheritance is not necessarily limited to the maternal line, and a small probability of bi-parental inheritance has also been measured. Does this mean that the age estimated based on the mitochondrial Eve hypothesis you mentioned is Unreliable? God, what do I know about molecular anthropology? But I have no choice but to read, study, and think about how to answer this question. This process is the fun part of doing this project. Just like in class, no matter how much preparation you make, you may not be sure that a question asked by a student will be outside your "range".
Study: Many people say that today’s students generally cannot ask good questions.
Duan Zhiqiang: I don’t quite agree. I can only say that today’s students think about things differently from us. The main reason is that we are older and have nothing to talk to students about. In fact, students’ ideas are very active. We need to enter their world in order to see and listen. to their thoughts. If the teacher gives PPT lectures and allows students to anonymously write comments on the PPT, I guess there will be a lot of interesting ideas. But can teachers withstand such pressure?
In the past, teachers’ dignity was valued, and students had to go to the teacher’s side; now times have changed, and we teachers have to go to the students’ side. Just like when we get along with our children, do you still expect your children to tell you this and that every day? You have to get up there and understand what your child is thinking.
Go to the study room: Are you afraid that they will "climb" on top of you in the end?
Duan Zhiqiang: Wouldn’t it be a good thing if students have their own ideas and don’t take seriously what the teacher tells them? Every student's personality is different. Some students like to be step-by-step and disciplined; some students are more out-of-the-box and fearless and dare to express their ideas. As a teacher, as long as you ensure that students stay on the academic track, you shouldn’t impose too many other restrictions.
Global history has two dimensions, one in time and one in space. And traveling through history and across regions is precisely the magic of words. Words write history, and words themselves become history. We learn about the world in the past through written history.
However, it is not enough to understand the world by reading thousands of books, but also by traveling thousands of miles. When we realize how big the world is, we also realize that the world is actually very small.
Shang Shufang: I heard that you often take your students out and walk on the road.
Duan Zhiqiang: Yes, not only is he often "on the road", he is also a walking "foodie".
Shang Shufang: What is your personal “global history”? Where did it “start” from?
Duan Zhiqiang: I was born in a small village in Henan. When I was a child, I had never seen mountains. Our area was very flat and was a flooded area of the Yellow River. My parents are busy and they live with my sister. I live with my grandfather on a dirt platform. The earth platform is about 17 acres, and it was built by the villagers to avoid disasters when the Yellow River overflows and breaks its banks. Tutai was my whole world at that time - running into the woods every day and playing like crazy.
Shang Shufang: Your "starting point" in life is quite high.
Duan Zhiqiang: Yes. I lived in Tutai until I was 11 years old, and then I left the village and went to the county town to attend junior high school and high school. Grandpa went from being a person at the watchtower to ringing the bell in the school until the school replaced it with an electronic timer.
Shang Shufang: It seems that your grandfather is a very important person in your life. What kind of old man is he?
Duan Zhiqiang: Grandpa is a bit like an elder in ancient villages, "in charge" of the "cultural undertakings" of the village. He can read and write. He is the host of village events and the president of the village "etiquette committee." Weddings and funerals are almost the biggest events in small villages. I first learned about "history" from my grandpa, such as how village etiquette changed.
Duan Zhiqiang: He doesn’t need to tell me, I have seen it with my own eyes. In rural society, funerals are often a kind of carnival, for example, everyone gathers around to see how the host family is crying. We have a particularly bad habit there, which is to tease the son-in-law at the funeral of his parents-in-law, by giving him a big painted face or something like that. Once, when my grandfather was helping the master's family prepare for a funeral, he called a meeting and said that this custom must be changed. His parents-in-law passed away and his son-in-law came from a long way away. He was also very sad. How could he tease others? Not appropriate. When my grandfather said this, everyone could only say yes. From then on, our village became the only one among dozens of villages in the surrounding area that did not engage in this problem. When I grew up and studied history, I thought, isn’t this just changing customs? Confucianism likes to talk about "making rituals and music" and "making rituals based on emotions". This can be considered a specific and subtle example. In fact, a large number of folk customs were slowly changed because of a small person.
Shang Shufang: But ordinary people like your grandfather will not appear in history books.
Duan Zhiqiang: Yes. But history is actually created by people and is their stories.
The history of the world in the past was often made up of one country after another. But in recent years, “global history” no longer talks about history in this way.
The first change is that it no longer talks about history according to countries or dynasties. To use an analogy. Our past history books are a bit like modern maps. On modern maps, thick and thin lines are used to mark country boundaries, large and small circles are used to mark cities and towns, and different colors are used to mark these countries and regions. Mark it out.
However, if you close your eyes and imagine, if you go to far away space, you can see at a glance our blue planet, which is divided into seven parts by water and three parts by land. Where are the national borders and what sizes are there on this earth? How come the cities in the circle are different colors in different countries?
If we close our eyes and imagine that you are in distant space and can see the entire earth, and like a god, you can compress time and experience the entire long history, then what will you see? All kinds of people throughout the ages, like the little people in Lilliput, have been coming and going on this planet for thousands of years and ten thousand years, fighting, migrating, farming, trading, offering sacrifices, giving birth to children, and ships coming and going on the sea. Come and go, the car walks up and down the post road, "the waves are gone, the romantic figures of the ages", the valley turns into mountains many times, and the sea turns into mulberry fields several times.
Therefore, I would like to say that the first thing that "global history" wants to do is to transcend the country, no longer let national borders limit the observation of historians, and find a history that encompasses the world, is connected, interactive, and communicative.
However, can historians really write a "global" history in one book?
Let's close our eyes and imagine it again. When we are in space, we look at our earth from a distance. Although we may be able to see its panoramic view, no matter how capable you are, you can only see it from where you are. You are not the omniscient and omnipotent Zeus or God. Historians are also human beings, just like people on earth looking at the moon. , I always see half covered. Even if you can go around and see the back of it, you can still only see it from your standpoint, position, and angle. In other words, what you see is only what you can see, only what you can see from this angle.
Therefore, no global historian can claim that he can see history from 360 degrees without blind spots. On the one hand, we must get rid of monocentrism, and the history we want to talk about will be diverse, complex, and interconnected. On the other hand, we must also get rid of the arrogant omnipotism of historians. We historians should not think that we can be omniscient and omnipotent. When we write global history, we must admit that we are not the Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva with Thousand Arms and Thousand Eyes. We can only or better see the world from a certain perspective. Therefore, the second thing our global history needs to do is to admit that this is only global history in the eyes of Chinese historians. It is different from various global histories from the West. It will focus more on the perspective and issues of Chinese history. Looking at the world from different perspectives, it is just one of various global histories.
What we are going to talk about next is the third thing. This global history is mainly about the history of interconnectedness in the world.
There used to be a metaphor in China called "The bells ring on the east mountain and the bells on the west mountain echo." It means that many phenomena may seem unrelated, but in fact they influence each other. There is also an idiom in China called "The gray line of grass snakes, the veins are lying thousands of miles away", which means that history is like the underground river in the karst landform. Some rivers seem to be broken, but I don't know how far away it will start from another place. pop up. Many things in global history are similar to this, such as war, trade, immigration, religious spread, etc., which connect the world; some are like relay races, one stop after another, passing various knowledge, habits, and items from east to west. , spread from west to east, such as papermaking spread to West Asia and Europe, sweet potatoes and corn spread to Asia; some are infectious diseases, with the deepening of armies, immigrants, and explorers, leading to catastrophes for mankind, just like the Mongol army that spread to The Black Death brought by Europe.
The most important thing that global history should do is to look for this latent, organic, and interactive relationship throughout history. Although not all historical connections are so mysterious and weird, it will explore this connection as much as possible because it always hopes that readers of global history will realize that we live on the same earth and we must become global citizens.
