Lü Simian

Lü Simian a Chinese historian of the twentieth century (1884-1957), one of the most productive and versatile historians of the Republican period and a master of the general history of China. His surveys of Chinese history and his studies of the pre-modern economy, society and politics made him one of the founders of the modern historical profession in China.

Early Life and Education

Lü Simian was born on 9 February 1884 in Wujin, in Jiangsu province, into a family of scholar-officials who had fallen on harder times. He received a thorough classical education as a child and mastered the traditional curriculum, but he also read widely in the new learning that was transforming Chinese intellectual life in the last years of the imperial order. The combination of classical and modern training shaped the whole of his later career.

He did not pursue the examinations to office but devoted himself to scholarship, reading through the standard dynastic histories and the great collections of source materials with extraordinary thoroughness. He supported himself in part by teaching and by editorial work, and he acquired a comprehensive command of the sources that few of his contemporaries could match.

In his twenties he began to publish studies and textbooks, and he quickly established a reputation for accuracy, range and clarity. He was associated with the commercial publishers who were producing new histories and reading materials for a modernising readership, and through these channels his work reached a wide public.

The General Histories

Lü Simian's most famous works are his general histories of China, written for both students and the general reader. He published a history of the Qin and Han dynasties and a broad survey of earlier Chinese history, and at the end of his life he completed a concise general history that compressed the whole trajectory of Chinese civilisation into a single readable volume. These works became standard references and are still consulted today.

What distinguished his surveys was their control of detail and their freedom from doctrine. He moved easily among the dynastic histories, the institutional records and the archaeological evidence of his time, and he presented the long sweep of Chinese history with clarity and proportion. He was especially attentive to economic and social conditions, to systems of land tenure, taxation and labour, and to the daily life of the population.

He wrote in a plain and even style that avoided both pedantry and rhetorical flourish. His histories were praised for their reliability and their readability, and they did much to establish the writing of general history as a scholarly enterprise rather than a mere exercise in compilation. Several generations of Chinese students learned their history from his books.

Society, Economy and Institutions

Lü Simian was a pioneer in the social and economic history of pre-modern China. His studies of land tenure, the forms of servitude and dependency, the institutions of taxation and corvee labour and the structure of the family and lineage examined the material foundations of Chinese society with a precision that was unusual for his time. He drew on official documents, contracts, genealogies and local records to reconstruct the conditions of ordinary life.

He wrote on the history of Chinese institutions, including the bureaucratic system, the examination system and the development of law, and on the changing relations between the state and the rural population. He was among the first Chinese historians to treat the study of social forms as a distinct field with its own methods, and his essays on these subjects became foundational for later research.

His work on the frontier and on the peoples of the borderlands, on the history of religion and on the cultural history of the pre-Qin period displayed the same scrupulous attention to sources. He insisted on distinguishing what the evidence would support from what the historian wished to believe, and his caution and candour set an example for the profession.

Reading, Sources and Method

Lü Simian was celebrated for his reading. He is said to have read the twenty-four dynastic histories more than once, together with the great compendia and the collected works and notes of the scholars, and he used this vast erudition lightly in his writing. He was a master of the art of the historical note, recording a striking detail or resolving a disputed point with economy and precision.

He was critical of both the older tradition that treated the classics as infallible and the newer tendency to subordinate history to political theory. He held that the historian's first duty was to establish the facts and to understand the people of the past on their own terms, and he approached later interpretations of Chinese history with a healthy scepticism. His notes on doubtful points were themselves widely consulted.

He also wrote for general readers without condescension, believing that sound history should be accessible. His essays and popular surveys introduced many readers to the discipline, and his readiness to revise his own views in the light of new evidence modelled the intellectual honesty he demanded of others.

Influence and Legacy

Lü Simian was one of the principal architects of the modern Chinese historical profession. His general histories, his social and economic studies and his meticulous notes set standards of scholarship that shaped the work of those who followed, and his students and readers carried his methods into the universities and research institutes of the new order.

His reputation has proved durable because his books continue to be useful. Historians of many schools have found in them a reliable guide to the sources and a storehouse of carefully verified information, and his independence of mind has made him a respected figure among scholars of very different convictions.

He died on 9 October 1957 in Shanghai. He is remembered as a historian of prodigious learning and sober judgement, a writer who served his readers by telling them what the evidence showed, and a scholar whose devotion to accuracy gave the discipline of Chinese history a foundation on which later generations could build.

See also

• Chinese historiography
• Economy of imperial China
• Qian Mu
• Twenty-Four Histories