The “Revolution in Historical Materials” in the West and Its
Illumination on Chinese New Historiography
Xu Shanwei
Traditional western historiography emphasized specially on the role and value of
historical materials, and even established the principle that “historical materials is
history”, but it mainly relied on the archival data. The contemporary western
historians led to the “revolution in historical materials”,although they also emphasize
the value of historical materials, they think that historical materials themselves cannot
tell the truths, only when they are asked. The revolution greatly enlarged the ranges of
historical materials, and found a new system of historical materials, hence the records
and literatures, archaeological materials, imaginary materials, oral materials which
were neglected by traditional historians, are all brought into the ranges of the system.
The revolution also leads a great changes in the storage, transfer, search and arrange
of historical materials. Therefore, the revolution exerted a great influence on history
study, and also gives large illumination to Chinese new historiography.