Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies Symposium:
Rewriting Qing History

Friday, December 12, 2008 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
Chaired by Mark Elliott, Harvard University,
and Peter Perdue, Yale University

Special presentation by Ma Dazheng, Vice Director, Qing History Compilation Committee and Professor, Chinese Academy of
Social Sciences
“The Qing History Project and the State of the Field”
Location: CGIS Building South, Room S250
1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge

In imperial China, the act of writing the history of the fallen dynasty was one of the most important duties assigned to the new dynasty and helped establish it in the long order of legitimate succession or zhengtong. In this tradition, the government of the People's Republic of China agreed in 2002 to invest over one hundred million dollars toward the compilation of a new history of the Qing dynasty (1644-1912). The massive research and publication program of the Qing History Project (Qingshi gongcheng, or QHP) has involved more than 1,600 researchers from various disciplines and institutions across the country and aims by 2012 to produce an authoritative multi-volume history of China's last dynastic period, along with numerous translations and digitized databases. The QHP is thus emerging as a landmark event in Chinese historical studies. This symposium, coinciding with a visit by a delegation from Beijing, offered an opportunity to discuss the Project.

This program was conducted in Chinese
Sponsored jointly by the Fairbank Center, Harvard University, and the Yale Council on East Asian Studies

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