Chapter 414 413 [Newly Released Textbook]

"The Great Biography of Shangshu · Yu Xia Biography · Qing Yunge" sang: "The sun and the moon are shining brightly, Dan Fu Dan Xi.".

These eight characters created two universities during the period of the Republic of China, one named Guanghua and the other named Fudan.

In 1925, the May Thirtieth Massacre broke out in Shanghai, and the whole country was filled with righteous indignation. St. John's University and its affiliated middle school teachers and students also organized strikes, but were blocked by the school. 553 students and 19 Chinese teachers collectively swore to leave St. John's University.

With the help of all walks of life and students' parents, teachers and students successfully established Guanghua University in just three months. Due to the shortage of funds and insufficient conditions, in the first year of Guanghua University's establishment, the teachers and students of the school could only rent a house to attend classes.

But it was such a school that didn't even have classrooms, which attracted many scholars to teach spontaneously at that time. The school has an open school spirit and progressive thinking. It was a private university where free intellectuals and patriots gathered during the Republic of China.

The Lantern Festival has passed, and the spring is cold.

The school was about to start, and Lu Simian returned to Shanghai from his hometown in the countryside, and took a rickshaw to the teachers' dormitory of Guanghua University.

"Pause!"

When passing a bookstore outside the school, Lu Simian suddenly shouted.

After handing half a dime to the driver, Lu Simian walked into the bookstore with his suitcase and asked the boss, "Are there any new books recently?"

"Hey, so it's Professor Lu," the store owner greeted familiarly, "You look like you just came back from your hometown, and the Spring Festival is still lively."

"It's okay, as usual." Lu Simian nodded.

The shop owner introduced: "You came at the right time. The university scholar Zhou Hexuan has just published a new book. You must like it."

"Oh, Mr. Zhou's new book," Lu Simian asked, "is it a literary novel or an academic monograph?"

The shop owner took two copies from the bookshelf: ""Global History", divided into two volumes, priced at 6 yuan."

Lu Simian directly bought the book with money, and walked to the school gate with the box. When he came to his dormitory, he couldn't wait to pack his luggage, so he couldn't wait to read it.

Lu Simian was not simple. In later generations, together with Chen Yuan, Chen Yinke and Qian Mu, he was known as the "Four Great Masters of Modern Historiography". Now it is the early 1930s, and Lu Simian's reputation in the historian circle is even higher than that of Qian Mu, and comparable to that of Chen Yinke.

Lu Simian's famous work is "History of the Country in Vernacular", which is the first general history of China written in vernacular in China, and is extremely important in the history major of the Republic of China University. At present, at least one-fifth of domestic universities are using his book as a textbook on Chinese history.

"History of the Country in Vernacular" is famous not only because it is written in vernacular. Its content is also extremely exquisite and rigorous, widely recognized by the historian circle, and has a unique academic style.

Generally speaking, "History of the Country in Vernacular" inherits the textual research tradition of the Qianjia School and incorporates the new western historiographical thought. It can be called a superior work combining Chinese and Western.

When Lu Simian wrote this book, he was greatly influenced by Liang Qichao, and explained and analyzed Chinese history from the aspects of social economy, religion, nationality and culture. This is very similar to the modern historiography method proposed by Zhou Hexuan, but it is not as perfect as Zhou Hexuan's theory.

The only shortcoming of "Baihua Homeland History" is that the materials used are relatively old, and the newly discovered historical materials since the late Qing Dynasty have not been involved. It is not that Lu Simian lacks knowledge, but that it is difficult to collect data. After all, it is too difficult to compile a general history of China based on personal ability.

Lu Simian is an expert in the field of Chinese history. He also dabbles in world history. He opened Zhou Hexuan's "General History of the World" and read it with relish.

"The first volume of this book discusses the history of human beings for 2 million years before civilization, and the remaining volumes discuss the history of human civilization for less than 6,000 years..."

As soon as he read the first sentence of the opening chapter, Lu Simian couldn't help but be surprised. This article is too grand.

Zhou Hexuan wrote historical works during the period of the Republic of China. Apart from his advanced historiography, his greatest advantage was the endless stream of materials. For people with extremely primitive information transmission, every time they read Zhou Hexuan's academic monographs, there will be unexpected surprises. The readability of those unheard of new materials is too strong.

Lu Simian continued to read with excitement and amazement. The first chapter of the first volume is generally about Eurasia, and involves Africa and America. The second chapter begins to write about the origin of human beings, the Paleolithic Age and the distribution of races. Chapter 3 deals with the origins and spread of agriculture, the production of food, and its effects on population and race.

Then came the second part, which began to explain the ancient civilizations of Eurasia.

Before he finished reading the second volume, Lu Simian was shocked because he found a clear difference between "General History of the World" and previous monographs on world history. When Zhou Hexuan discussed ancient civilizations, he had already revealed the most important thing in this book—the global view of history.

"Global History" regards the human history of the whole world as a whole, and all regions, countries, and nations are interconnected and influenced each other. These include commercial connections, such as the ancient Silk Road, which influenced the history of a series of countries from the Far East, Central Asia to Europe; there are also cultural connections, such as the invention of alphabetic writing, which affected the entire ancient world except China; As for the spread and influence of religion, it is also classified as part of the cultural connection.

Lu Simian read so much that he forgot to sleep and eat, he didn't even eat lunch and dinner, until he was so hungry that he suddenly realized that it was already dark outside.

After eating something wholeheartedly, Lu Simian stayed up all night reading for half the night, and when he woke up the next morning, he already had dark circles under his eyes. He took the "General History of the World" to find the principal Zhang Shouyong, and said, "Brother Bo Song, I suggest that this book be selected as the world history textbook of Guanghua University."

"What book?" Zhang Shouyong asked.

"Zhou Hexuan's new work "Global History", "Lu Simian praised Bi Zhidao, "This book is extremely wonderful, the content is easy to understand, and the historical viewpoints are profound and simple. It is very suitable for college students to study and read."

"It turned out to be Mr. Zhou's book," Zhang Shouyong said with a smile, "You are the head of the history department, you decide for yourself, I am only responsible for paying for the textbooks."

In this way, "General History of the World" became a compulsory course for history majors in Guanghua University. The same situation also appeared in Central University, Fudan University, Northeastern University, Nankai University, Tsinghua University, Peking University, Sun Yat-sen University...

Not only students are reading, but even history teachers are learning, because many viewpoints and materials in "General History of the World" are relatively new. If teachers don't study hard, how can they be ashamed to teach students?

In order to reduce the burden on students, the school collective purchase price of "Global History" is only 4 yuan, which is far lower than the retail price of 6 yuan on the market.

As soon as the book was distributed to the students, it immediately aroused a rush to read it. Not only students majoring in history, but even many science and engineering students read it with gusto, because this book is not difficult to write, and it can be used as a popular science book for entertainment.

Until the eve of the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, "General History of the World" had become popular in China, and at least 90% of universities used it as a textbook, including many church schools.

In the minds of students majoring in history, Zhou Hexuan has become a god-level existence, an unshakable authority in the field of world history.