"Shang Shu Da Zhuan·Yu Xia Zhuan·Qing Yun Ge" sings: "The sun and the moon are shining brightly, the day is over and the day is over.".
These eight characters gave birth to two universities during the Republic of China, one was called Guanghua and the other was called Fudan.
In 1925, the May 30th Massacre broke out in Shanghai, and the whole country was filled with indignation. Teachers and students of St. John's University and its affiliated high school also organized a strike, but the school authorities blocked it. 553 students and 19 Chinese teachers collectively swore to leave St. John's University.
With the help of all walks of life and students' parents, teachers and students successfully established Guanghua University in just three months. Due to lack of funds and insufficient conditions, in the first year of Guanghua University's establishment, teachers and students could only rent houses to attend classes.
But even such a school without classrooms attracted many scholars to come to teach on their own initiative at that time. The school spirit here was open and the ideas were progressive. It was a private university where liberal intellectuals and patriots gathered during the Republic of China.
The Lantern Festival has passed, and the spring is getting colder.
School was about to start classes soon. Lu Simian returned to Shanghai from his hometown in the countryside and took a rickshaw to the teachers' dormitory of Guanghua University.
"Pause!"
When passing a bookstore outside the school, Lu Simian suddenly shouted.
After handing half a dime to the coachman, Lu Simian walked into the bookstore with his suitcase and asked the boss, "Are there any new books recently?"
"Hey, it turns out to be Professor Lu," the shop owner greeted in a familiar manner, "Looking at you, you must have just returned from your hometown and had a lively Spring Festival."
"It's okay, same as usual." Lu Simian nodded.
The store owner introduced: "You came at the right time. The great scholar Zhou Hexuan has just published a new book. You will definitely like it."
"Oh, Mr. Zhou's new book," Lu Simian asked, "is it a literary novel or an academic monograph?"
The store owner took two books from the bookshelf: ""Global History", divided into two volumes, priced at 6 yuan."
Lu Simian directly took out the money to buy the book and walked to the school gate with the box in hand. After arriving at his dormitory, he couldn't wait to pack his luggage, so he couldn't wait to read it.
Lu Simian was not a simple person. In later generations, he was known as the "Four Masters of Modern Historiography" together with Chen Yuan, Chen Yinke, and Qian Mu. Now it is the early 1930s, and Lu Simian's reputation in the field of history is even higher than that of Qian Mu.
On par with Chen Yinke.
Lu Simian's famous work is "History of the Country in Vernacular", which is China's first general history of China written in vernacular. It is extremely important in the history major of the University of the Republic of China. Currently, at least one-fifth of domestic universities are using his
This book is used as a Chinese history textbook.
"History of the Republic of China in Vernacular" is famous not only because it is written in vernacular. Its content is also extremely sophisticated and rigorous. It is widely recognized by the historians and has a unique scholarly style.
In general, "The History of the Country in Vernacular" inherits the textual research tradition of the Qianjia School, and integrates the new historical thinking of the West. It can be said to be an excellent work that combines Chinese and Western knowledge.
When Lu Simian was writing this book, he was greatly influenced by Liang Qichao. He elaborated and analyzed Chinese history from multiple aspects such as social economy, religion, ethnicity, and culture. This is very similar to the modern historical method proposed by Zhou Hexuan, but there is no such method as Zhou Hexuan's.
The theory is just that perfect.
The only shortcoming of "History of the Country in Vernacular" is that the materials used are relatively old, and the newly discovered historical materials since the late Qing Dynasty are not covered. It is not that Lu Simian lacks knowledge, but that it is difficult to collect data. After all, he wrote a general history of China based on his personal ability.
too difficult.
Lu Simian is an expert in the field of Chinese history. He is also involved in world history. He opened Zhou Hexuan's "General History of the World" and read it with relish.
"The first volume of this book discusses the 2 million years of human history before civilization, and the remaining volumes discuss the less than 6,000 years of human civilization history..."
As soon as he read the first sentence, Lu Simian couldn't help but be surprised. This article was too grand.
Zhou Hexuan's biggest advantage in writing historical works during the Republic of China was not only his advanced historical perspective, but also the endless supply of information. For people with extremely primitive information transmission, unexpected surprises will appear every time they read Zhou Hexuan's academic monographs. , those new and unheard of materials are so readable.
Lu Simian continued reading with excitement and wonder. The first chapter of the first volume summarizes the Eurasian continent, and involves Africa and the Americas. The second chapter begins to write about the origin of human beings, the Paleolithic Age and the distribution of human races. The third chapter Write about the origin, spread, food production, and impact of agriculture on population and race.
Then comes the second part, which begins to explain the ancient civilizations of Eurasia.
Before he finished reading the second part, Lu Simian was suddenly shocked because he discovered the obvious difference between "General History of the World" and previous world history monographs. Zhou Hexuan had already revealed this when discussing ancient civilizations. The most important thing in this book is the global historical perspective.
"Global History" regards human history around the world as a whole. All regions, countries, and ethnic groups are interconnected and influence each other. This includes commercial connections, such as the ancient Silk Road, which affected people from the Far East, A series of national histories from Central Asia to Europe; there are also cultural connections, such as the invention of alphabetic writing, which affected the entire ancient world except China; as for the spread and influence of religion, it is also classified as part of the cultural connection.
Lu Simian read so hard that he forgot all about food and sleep. He didn't even eat lunch or dinner. It wasn't until his stomach growled with hunger that he suddenly realized that it was already dark outside.
After eating something in a hurry, Lu Simian stayed up and read for half the night. When he got up the next morning, he already had dark circles under his eyes. He took the "General History of the World" to the principal Zhang Shouyong and said: "Brother Bosong, I suggest that this This book has been selected as the world history textbook of Guanghua University."
"What book?" Zhang Shouyong asked.
"Zhou Hexuan's new work "Global History" is highly praised," Lu Simian said highly. "This book is extremely wonderfully written, the content is easy to understand, and the historical viewpoints are explained in simple and profound terms. It is very suitable for college students to learn to read."
"It turns out that it is Mr. Zhou's work," Zhang Shouyong said with a smile, "You are the chairman of the history department, you can make your own decision. I am only responsible for paying for the purchase of teaching materials."
In this way, "Global History" became a required course for the history major of Guanghua University. The same situation also appeared at Central University, Fudan University, Northeastern University, Nankai University, Tsinghua University, Peking University, Sun Yat-sen University...
Not only students are reading, but also history teachers are studying, because many of the ideas and materials in "General History of the World" are relatively new. If teachers don't study hard, how can they be embarrassed to teach students?
In order to reduce the burden on students, the collective purchase price of "Global History" for schools is only 4 yuan, which is far lower than the retail price of 6 yuan on the market.
As soon as this book was distributed to students, it immediately aroused competition for reading. I don’t know if it was a history major, but even many science and engineering students read it with gusto, because this book is not difficult to write and can be used as a popular science reading for entertainment.
Until the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, "Global History" had become popular in China, and at least 90% of universities used it as a textbook, including many missionary schools.
In the minds of history majors, Zhou Hexuan has become a god-level existence and an unshakable authoritative figure in the field of world history.
