The History of Daily Life (published by Beijing Normal University Press) is the third collection of essays by Mr. Chang Jianhua, director, professor and doctoral supervisor of the Center for Chinese Social History Research at Nankai University, after "The History of Social Life" and "Concepts, Historical Materials and Horizons", which has been written in the past 89 years, with the subtitle of "Three Explorations of Chinese Social History Research", aiming to explore how to understand society from the perspective of life.
The five chapters of the book can actually be divided into two parts: the first two chapters are academic reviews, summarizing the results of the theory and practice of Chinese social history research from 2007 to 2016, focusing on macroscopic elaboration to cover the world with dignity; the last three chapters are rigorous and specific case studies on daily life in the Ming and Qing dynasties, of which the study of the Ming Dynasty mainly uses family rules and family training to discuss the impact of the clan system on the lives of ethnic groups; the study of the Qing Dynasty uses notes and criminal subjects to present urban life and rural life.
According to the German historian Ars Rutck's definition of "history of everyday life", this concept emphasizes research perspectives and methods rather than a unique object of study. The common phrase is "the history of small people" and "the history of the underworld", while Rütke believes that the emphasis on everyday life should be understood as a criticism of criticism, which is an action-oriented perspective, and the history of daily life has become a dimension of a large number of research projects and descriptions, and the discovery of "horizontal" daily life in the context of society and domination.
It is generally believed that in the mid-1970s, the study of the history of daily life arose in Germany, and then spread to Italy, France, the United States and other European and American countries. As an independent field of study, the history of social life in China has made outstanding achievements in the past 20 years or so. Chang Jianhua believes that the history of social life is the history of connecting all parts of society with human life as the core. The greatest value of the study of life history should be the establishment of a human-centered history. Life history is based on the daily activities of the people, embedded in social organization, material life, festivals, life cycles, and settlement forms. It is also essential to pay attention to social stratification and understand the lives of different social groups. The study of life history brings about changes in perspective and methods, from the habit of discovering history, from the daily view of the country, challenging the traditional historical understanding, from the change of lifestyle can examine the relationship between ethnic groups and compare different civilizations, and expound social changes. Therefore, the study of the history of social life should be transformed into the history of daily life, which is a re-departure for the study of Chinese social history.
Chang Jianhua took this as a criterion and launched the discussion of "the study of Chinese social history in the new century" and "the perspective of the study of the history of daily life." These two chapters have a broad vision and far-sighted vision, including a thorough analysis of the dynamics of international historiography, but also a review of the field of domestic daily life history, academic scenarios and academic achievements are integrated, involving a full range of scholarly achievements display and origin history, combing out clues from trivial and complicated materials, and deeply possessing the ability of comprehensive dissection and identification and comparison. Chang Jianhua's adoption, there is no difference between sects, nor is it contaminated with ideology, but upholds the true meaning of scholarship, tries its best to present the academic atmosphere of a hundred flowers blooming and a hundred schools of thought, especially emphasizing the reference and absorption of sociology and anthropology, which shows Botong's thoughtful attitude and mind.
The last three chapters illustrate the results of the research made under the guidance of the above ideas and provide specific and micro-methodological observations. Huo Tao's "Family Training" was conceived in traditional Chinese culture, especially Xiqiao culture, and reflects the process of how a family that has been infiltrated by Confucianism in a grass-roots society has changed from an economically rich family to a cultural family, or a Wang family, during the period of economic rise. "Chaolin Pen Talk" is close to the nature of autobiography, according to which we can examine the personal life history of the author Gong Wei, understand his political stance, life experience, life attitude, family life and family relations, see his temperament, cultural taste, academic situation and the ideological turn of the desperate examination, a vivid image of a scholar presented to readers hundreds of years later through notes.
These cases vividly present the charm of daily life history. Chang Jianhua pays great attention to the relationship between micro and macro, and still links specific research with the dynamics of the academic community. Chang Jianhua pays attention to the various unique perspectives of Chinese and foreign scholars, some are good at starting from material and cultural consumption, some are from gender research to the social history of the fields of reproductive medicine, marriage and family, and social interaction, some skillfully use daily books to study the history of individual life, and some use the methods of the yearbook school to dig deep into the logic behind the data with detailed data... This kind of research can also be linked to the fields of new cultural history, intellectual history, mentality history, and emotional history, and actively discover historical materials from folk documents and carry out new historical interpretations.