BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAYS 723
massive work includes careful investigations of many problems present in the accumu-
lation of Ch'ing and more recent scholarship on Yuan history. It is a noteworthy
addition to, and virtually the culmination of, that native tradition and at many
points is a most useful work. Nonetheless, the treatment of social history, even in
this very large work, is superficial.
The study of Chinese social history in the Yuan period has not yet drawn as much
attention as have political and institutional, literary, art, and intellectual history. In
mainland China the focus has been largely on Yuan social structure, presented in
simplistic class analysis and, in particular, on the popular rebellions of
the
late Yuan.
Though often doctrinaire, this intense combing of the documentary evidence and
ingenious use of the new archaeological materials have contributed significant new
data. An important example of this is the compilation entitled Yuan tat
nung
min
chart chengshih liao buipien
(Compilation of historical materials relevant to the peasant
wars of the Yuan dynasty).
8
Part 1, compiled by Yang Ne and Ch'en Kao-hua, covers
the years 1237 to 1350. Part 2, in two volumes, compiled by Yang Ne, Ch'en Kao-
hua, Chu Kuo-chao, and Liu Yen, covers the rebellions other than that of Chu Yiian-
chang, in the years 1351 to 1368. Part 3, in one volume, compiled by Yang Ne and
Ch'en Kao-hua, is devoted to the rebellion of Chu Yiian-chang and the founding of
the Ming dynasty, in the years from 1328 to 1367. This work will greatly facilitate a
thoroughgoing reassessment of popular rebellions in the Yuan period, particularly
those of the final decades of Yiian rule.
A leading figure in Yiian history studies was Han Ju-lin (d. 1986), who was a
student of Paul Pelliot in Paris in the 1930s and was thoroughly conversant with
Western, including Soviet, scholarship. His impact on modern Chinese historical
study of the Yiian can be seen in the two-volume
History
of
the
Yiian
dynasty,*
produced under his general supervision by a group of
his
associates at the Center for
Yiian History Studies at the University of Nanking, which he founded and headed
for many years. This work is one of the best modern dynastic histories to have been
produced in mainland China. Nonetheless, its sections on social history are frag-
mented and thin. A collection of Han's writings, entitled
Ch'iung-lu
chi,
la
was
published in 1982.
The state of Yiian history studies in mainland China since 1949 is the subject of an
important review essay appended to the volume
Yiian shih
lun
chi
(Essays on Yiian
history) published by the Center for Yiian History Studies at the University of
Nanking in 1984; it includes several important studies relevant to social history.
This volume also includes a selective bibliography of articles and books published
between 1949 and 1980, classified by subfields."
In Taiwan, stimulated by the presence of the late Professor Yao Ts'ung-wu who
8 Yang Ne, Ch'en Kao-hua et al., comps., Yiian tai nung min chan chtng shih liao hui pien, 4 vols.
(Peking, 1985).
9 Han Ju-lin, Yiian
ch'ao
shih (Peking, 1986).
10 Han Ju-lin, Ch'iung lu chi: Yiian shih chi hsi pei min tsu shih
yen
chiu (Shanghai, 1982).
11 Nan-ching ta hsiieh li-shih hsi, Yiian shih yen chiu shih, comps., Yiian
shih
lun chi (Peking, 1984), p.
770.
Note appendices: "1949—1980 nien te Chung-kuo Yiian shih yen chiu," and "1949—1980 nien
pu fen Yiian shih lun wen mu lu."
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