Conclusion: World History and the Value of the Past

Summary

This concluding chapter summarizes the emergence of nationalism among Chinese world historians in the late twentieth century. However, it makes a case for the significance of the work of decades of Chinese scholarship in world history and reaffirms its contributions to contemporary historical debates. This chapter concludes that the most important legacy is its profound and multifaceted critique of Eurocentrism and its vigorous pursuit of alternative visions of world history. It also criticizes the gender imbalance in the field as, still today, most “renowned” scholars in world-historical studies in China continue to be male scholars. The lack of a prominent voice from female scholars is still a challenge that the field has to confront in the twenty-first century. Thus, the Chinese study of world history is an important contribution to global historiography, nationalism studies, and the intellectual history of twentieth-century China. It is a mixed legacy likely to shape how we understand China’s place in the world for the foreseeable future.