Аннотация:This article examines historical writings of early twentieth-century China from the perspective of the nation.In part one, I compare the historical writings in Guocui xuebao (Journal of National Essence, 1905-1912) and Xueheng (Critical Review, 1922-1933).In current scholarship, historians who published in these two journals are often considered to be cultural conservatives who rejected modernity.To challenge this view, I compare the ways these two groups of historians envisioned post-imperial China.The Guocui historians wanted to win the support of Han Chinese to revolt against the Manchu Dynasty.To achieve this goal, they promoted racial nationalism and defined China as the nation-state of the Han race.In contrast, two decades later, historians associated with Xueheng envisioned China as based on a communal bond developed over centuries of acculturation and socialization.Instead of racial genealogy, they used "culture" (wenhua) to articulate a multi-ethnic identity for twentieth-century Chinese.
