First, the subject concept of Western cultural history
1, from traditional history, new history to new culture history
As a branch of historiography, cultural history has its process of emergence, development and evolution, and people's understanding of cultural history also changes with this process. Since Frank's objectivism historiography appeared in18th century, the positivism historiography of "recording historical facts" has influenced it to this day. /kloc-since the 0/9th century, "speculative" historical philosophy has pushed political history to the center of historical research. At that time, the status of cultural history in historiography was not high.
/kloc-the "new historiography" that rose in the second half of the 0/9th century often claimed to be the history of culture or civilization. The New History holds that culture is the sum of all aspects of human development, and history is the progress of human culture. Therefore, the study of "new historiography" includes the history of all aspects of human development. Spencer, a British philosopher, sociologist and educator, discussed this new historical category in his book On Education published in 1860. "In Spencer's historical category, politics, class, religion, customs, literature, art and people's daily life are almost all-encompassing." Although Spencer did not use the concept of cultural history, western scholars usually regard his exposition as an incisive exposition of the theory of cultural history. William Lear, a German cultural historian, believes that cultural history is a real historical philosophy, and it is "the history of all civilizations in all countries, which is not only manifested in economy, politics and society, but also in literature, art and science." Known as the "most outstanding cultural historian", the Swiss historian Buckhart gave a clearer definition of cultural history in a speech: "Usually, cultural history is the world history as a whole, while history means the development of events and their connections ... For us, this standard includes: what drives the world and what has an impact throughout."
In the 1970s and 1980s, the "new cultural history" that emerged in western historians was regarded as "the mainstream research trend of contemporary western historiography". The new cultural history is the reaction and development of the old "new historiography". Compared with the previous historical research orientation, the new cultural history has two characteristics: on the one hand, it pays attention to the cultural factors and aspects in history, that is to say, the research object and field of history has shifted from the previous emphasis on politics, military, economy and society to the social and cultural category; On the other hand, it puts forward the concept of culture to explain history. The new cultural history uses the theories and methods of anthropology, linguistics, literary theory and cultural research to explain its cultural connotation and significance through the analysis of cultural symbols such as language, symbols and rituals. The new cultural history unifies the original names such as social and cultural history, historical anthropology and anthropological history under its banner. The New Cultural History (1989) edited by Lin Hunt gives a theoretical summary of the new cultural history that arose in the 1970s, marking the initial construction of the theory of new cultural history. The research field of cultural history has rapidly expanded to many aspects such as material cultural history, body history, representation history, social history of memory, political cultural history, and social history of language.
2. The content of western cultural history
Some scholars believe: "Culture is a social phenomenon and an external manifestation of ideology. The elements of culture include the direct expression of ideology, such as scientific thought, philosophical thought and social ideological trend. They are abstract and basic. At the same time, it also includes the external manifestations of ideology, that is, ideology reflected through the form of things, such as religion, literature, art, customs, lifestyle and so on. They are concrete and external reflections. Cultural history is also a historical description and summary of the above aspects. " From this perspective, cultural history, as one of the categories of history, should only be about cultural history in a narrow sense, including ideological theory, religious beliefs, literature and art, customs and habits, and so on. However, many scholars at home and abroad have extended the study of cultural history to other fields, even including all historical phenomena of mankind, including politics, economy, society and even military affairs, and western cultural history is no exception.
Among the domestic works on the history of western culture, Zhuang Xichang's History of Western Culture, Shen Zhihang's History of Western Culture, Zhang's History of Western Culture, Gao Fujin's History of Western Culture, Ye Shengnian's History of Western Culture and Shen Fuxu's Introduction to Modern Western Cultural History all belong to the narrow sense of western cultural history, and there is no systematic introduction to western politics, economy and military affairs. These books are basically published as teaching materials and popular reading materials, and cannot be called research works.
The History of Western Culture: From the Beginning of Civilization to the Enlightenment by Peking University and Xin Xu is the main research work on the history of western culture in China. The book fully shows the connotation and development of western culture, and pays special attention to the thoughts, movements and achievements that run through it and have a far-reaching impact on the progress of human society. Although the History of Western Culture written by Jiang and others is basically a cultural work in a narrow sense, it introduces the spiritual and cultural achievements of the West from ancient times to the present, carefully combs the essence of western culture, traces the origin of western culture, discusses the value orientation of western culture, and analyzes the collision and intersection between western culture and eastern culture, so it can be said to be a research work.
From the content point of view, one of the biggest shortcomings of domestic western cultural history works is that they basically do not involve mass culture, especially western customs and habits, lower mass culture and so on.
3. The time span of western cultural history.
From the time point of view, the current works on western cultural history are mainly divided into two categories: general history of cultural history and dynastic history. The general history mainly describes the cultural achievements of western society in chronological order from ancient Greek culture and Roman culture, Christian culture in the Middle Ages, European Renaissance and Religious Reform in14-16th century, Enlightenment in18th century, rationalism, liberalism in19th century and modernism in 20th century. It is an objective narrative of cultural historical facts, which is basically written in most domestic works on western cultural history.
The researchers of dynastic history mainly expound personal views on the culture of a certain period, and their achievements are mostly speculative. We often say that China's culture is profound, but we don't know that the history of western culture is not narrow and simple. It is impossible to explain all the contents of western cultural history in one book. Xin Xu divided the History of Western Culture into two parts, which can be regarded as a rare work on the dynastic history of western culture in China. The Age of Louis XIV by Voltaire, a French cultural historian, is also a masterpiece in the study of dynastic history in western cultural history. In this book, he highly praised that era and thought that "European civilization and social spirit should be attributed to the court of Louis XIV". Braudel, a representative of the French Annales School, published Philip II's masterpiece The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in 1949, which also belongs to the same category.
4. Spatial definition of western cultural history.
Judging from the ever-changing concept of "West", Western culture is a culture of constant development, change and expansion. "/kloc-Before 0/8th century, the west was still limited to western European countries. The United States and Canada in North America have been included since the18th century. " . After the 20th century, the West in a broad sense includes not only the whole ancient Europe, but also the whole West Asia and North Africa, and even all developed capitalist countries such as Japan in East Asia. The narrow sense of the West refers to the developed countries in Europe and America. Judging from the existing works of western cultural history in China, people basically agree that Europe and America are the representatives of western culture, and this spatial concept makes western cultural history basically become the history of European and American culture.
Western Christian tradition, bourgeois democratic thought and developed economic society make western scholars regard their own culture as the best culture, so the previous study of western cultural history is full of the color of "western centralism". George, a famous French historian, and Barker, a British historian, focus on the study of the history of European civilization. There is an obvious tendency of "Eurocentrism" in their thoughts, and they think that European civilization is the real civilization, while foreign cultures are usually described as other cultures. Or demonized. However, with the progress of society, the broadening of people's horizons and cultural exchanges, more and more people gradually get rid of the shackles of "western-centered theory" and realize the uniqueness and Excellence of other regions and national cultures. The History of European Culture by Dutch historian Peter Liebergen broke the framework of Eurocentrism and placed the development of European culture in the relationship between Europe and other regions.
Second, the perspective of Western cultural history research
1, from the perspective of historical philosophy
In western academic circles, the study of historical philosophy generally falls into two categories: "speculative historical philosophy" and "analytical or critical historical philosophy". The former mainly discusses the characteristics, significance or laws of the development of the whole human history; The latter focuses on the unique nature, method or function of historical research itself. The book Contemporary Western Historiography Theory, edited by He Zhaowu and Neng, regards the historical view of cultural form as the main representative of contemporary western speculative historical philosophy. The Decline of the West by Bingler, a German contemporary historical philosopher, embodies the historical philosophical characteristics of cultural history research. From the historical perspective of cultural forms, Bingler believes that eight cultural systems have emerged in human culture, and that western culture, like the other seven cultures that are already in a rigid state, will also go to its destination and decline. As a "New Spengler School", Toynbee's life-long work Historical Research inherits and develops Bingler's theory of historical view of cultural formation and explores human civilization. He developed from eight civilizations in Bingler to thirty-seven. The Clash of Civilizations and the Reconstruction of World Order by samuel huntington, a professor at Harvard University in the United States, became another scholar who explained history, recognized reality and predicted the future from the perspective of civilization and culture after Bingler and Toynbee at the end of the 20th century. So some people say that Huntington is another person who looks at western culture from the perspective of historical philosophy.
2. A new perspective of historical research
New historiography is born out of traditional historiography. Traditional historiography has long been concerned with the study of human political history, military history and diplomatic history, so its fundamental defect is that it only pays attention to political events and the activities of elite figures. Thus, as early as the middle of18th century, the limitations and narrowness of traditional historiography were challenged and questioned. Voltaire, a French enlightenment thinker known as the "father of cultural history", made a bold attempt to break through the traditional historiography. From 65438 to 0860, the publication of the book "Italian Renaissance Culture" by the Swiss historian Buckhart further established the content and category of cultural history research.
Henry Bell can be said to be the pioneer of new historiography. He advocated unifying human knowledge with historiography as the center and advocating interdisciplinary comprehensive research. 1900, Bell founded a comprehensive historical magazine with interdisciplinary characteristics. Robinson is an advocate of American new historiography. He opposed the closure of traditional historiography and stressed that historians should use the new scientific knowledge about human beings to find "new allies" including anthropology, prehistoric archaeology, social psychology, comparative religion, political economy and sociology.
3. Research perspective of new cultural history
As mentioned above, the new cultural history that arose in the West in the 1970s and 1980s is a new perspective for the study of western cultural history. Because this school is mainly composed of scholars who study sociology, anthropology and other disciplines, their research is characterized by social history, political history and language history, which expands the research field of western cultural history in the past, forms new concepts and promotes the interdisciplinary research of cultural history.
4. Interdisciplinary research perspective
Interdisciplinary research advocated by new historiography is a prominent feature of western cultural history research. Many new disciplines have emerged in the field of cultural history research, such as cultural anthropology, cultural sociology, cultural philosophy, ethnology, religious culturology and so on. In these disciplines, in view of the different position of culture in the research perspective and content of each discipline, it can be roughly divided into three categories. The first category mainly studies cultural history from a new perspective, such as cultural anthropology and cultural sociology. The research achievements of domestic cultural anthropologists in this field include Lin's Cultural Anthropology and Ma Guanghai's Cultural Anthropology. The works on cultural sociology include Sima Yun Jie's Sociology of Culture (200 1). The second category is the interaction between culture and other disciplines. Cultural philosophy is such a subject. Yang Shanmin and others' Cultural Philosophy (2002) discusses the characteristics of cultural philosophy from three aspects: culture, life practice and human liberation. The third category is interdisciplinary research with culture as the research perspective or atmosphere, such as religious culturology. The second part of Zhang Zhigang's Introduction to Religious Culturology discusses the world religious relations from the perspective of modern cultural background.
5. Comparative cultural research perspective
Usually, the study of western cultural history is basically confined to the scope of western culture, and even if there is a comparison, it is carried out within the scope of western culture. When China people write the history of western culture, they will naturally think about the differences between eastern and western cultures from the perspective of orientals, so some scholars have added the content of comparing eastern and western cultures in their works. For example, Jiang's History of Western Culture makes a comparative study of Chinese and Western cultures.
6. The perspective of popular culture research.
Although the study of popular culture rose in the 1960s, the problem has a long history. Like China, for a long time, historical writing mainly focused on the upper field of "talented people and beautiful women", and less involved the culture of the lower people. This problem can be seen from domestic works on the history of western culture. Among the similar works we have seen, only Ye Shengnian's History of Western Culture has a chapter on popular culture. However, in the west, in recent years, there have been cultural history works devoted to the study of popular culture, some of which have been translated into Chinese. For example, Thompson, a famous British scholar, is very representative of the formation of the British working class.
Third, the understanding of western culture and the study of western cultural history.
Understanding western culture and its history is the key to the study of western cultural history. Judging from the existing works, there are still many differences in people's understanding and evaluation of western culture and its history, and the writing of western cultural history is naturally different. Perhaps some writers who write the history of western culture have not thought about the problem from the perspective of understanding and evaluating western culture, but it is difficult to study western culture without thinking. Judging from the current research results, people's understanding of the study of western culture and western cultural history needs to be further discussed in four aspects.
1, Western culture is Christian culture.
Domestic works on western cultural history pay little attention to the Christian nature of western culture. Although the History of Western Culture edited by Zhuang Xichang and Shen Zhixing contains contents about Christianity, the explanation of the Christian nature of western culture is too brief to explain the problem. The fourth chapter of Ye Sheng's History of Western Culture is entitled Christian Culture and the New Testament, and the third chapter of Jiang's History of Western Culture is entitled Mysterious Christian Culture in the Middle Ages. Although these works describe the western Christian culture in detail, they are basically limited to ancient times. I didn't know that the Christian nature of western culture has continued until now. How to convey the inheritance and development of this Christian culture to readers has become an important topic in the study of western cultural history in China.
2. Western culture is multicultural.
People have long understood the diversity, or pluralism, of western culture. However, it is not easy to write this diversity in western cultural history works. Xin Xu's History of Western Culture: From the Initial Civilization to Enlightenment and the Continuation of Western Cultural History: From the American Revolution to the 20th Century describes the complexity and richness of western culture, which can be said to be a lot of works on the diversification of western culture. However, it is a question worthy of analysis that the diversity of western culture is reflected in what aspects. For example, in western culture, there are many religions, races, languages, nationalities, customs and habits, etc., and their characteristics and differences should be distinguished.
3. Western culture has its own characteristics.
Many papers have analyzed the characteristics of western culture, and the analyzed characteristics are also different, such as marine commercial culture, expansion culture, animal culture, capitalist culture, pioneering culture, struggle culture and so on. To write a successful history of western culture, it is necessary to infiltrate these characteristics into the works. But from the current domestic academic circles, there are not many such works.
4. Diversity and unity of eastern and western cultures.
With the progress of science, the development of society and the frequent activities of cross-cultural dialogue and cooperation, the diversity and unity of cultural history have become the characteristics of its research. The book Multicultural Planet-Report of UNESCO International Expert Group puts forward the viewpoint of cultural unity and diversity balance, and holds that there are various cultures in the world, and people should fully understand and respect each culture. On the one hand, cultural exchange enriches and strengthens the connection and mutual influence between one culture and other cultures; On the other hand, because people live in a complex and unstable global society, cultural differences have become the root of conflicts between countries and races. Therefore, only on the basis of maintaining cultural diversity can a certain unity be achieved on the principle of equality, mutual benefit and inclusiveness. The "unity" here is not "consistency", nor does it damage and obliterate the uniqueness of each culture. The more national all cultures are, the more cosmopolitan they are. Mr. He Zhaowu also put forward the same view in his book A Random Talk on Culture. He believes: "The unity of culture lies in its diversity. It is one of many, one of many. "
To sum up, culture is a social phenomenon, a decisive force and plays an irreplaceable role in solving world problems. The history of western culture has experienced the development process from traditional historiography to new cultural history. Although there are still vague and controversial issues in the research, such as concept definition, research scope and research perspective, we believe that cultural historians will definitely find a golden key to peace by thinking about and solving these issues, and by studying, summarizing and summarizing the fundamental laws of the development of western and even world cultural history.