CHINESE HISTORY
Sta,—I cannot read Mr. Hsieh's review of my Short History of Chinese Civilisation without a chuckle. Mr. Hsieh says he is my "compatriot" and claims to have made "a perusal" of my book. I wonder.!
With a sweeping remark, he discredits our "official histories" (probably he means the "Twenty-four Histories") and the authenticity of our ancient classics. It was a fashionable point of view in the nineteen twenties, but quite out of fashion now. He objects to any reference to legends from our classics, and attacks me for comparing these legendary figures with the material of modern excavations. He might as well say that the Bible and Homer's works should be completely ignored by modern historians. He condemns the figures recorded in books written thousands of years ago as " locographical heroes." If he has learned his classics from reading locographical literature—a thing unknown to China until recent years— it is no wonder that he thinks our classics all nonsense. In the meantime, I must advise him to read page 22 of my book, in order to understand what I have already said in it.
Mr. Hsieh accuses me of having "given disjointed accounts of the feudal system in the Chou period, the brief interlude of Wang Mang's 'new deal,' the economic and social reforms of Wang An-shih, the uprising which heralded the fall of each dynasty, the T'aip'ing Rebellion of the last century, and, one may add, the rise of the Communist movement in contemporary China." These events occurred separately during a period of more than two thousand years, and some of them happened centuries apart. Is it the fault of a historian that they are not joined? As for their social backgrounds, Mr. Hsieh will be better informed to read page 45 in my book for Feudal System, page 87 for Wang Mang, pages 48-159 for Wang An-shih, the whole of Chapter XXII for the T'aip'ingists. As for the Communist movement in China, Mr. Hsieh can under- stand it better if he reads the Chapters XXVII-XXIX of my history which have a description of its development.—Yours sincerely, Tan CHI. a Burnham Road, St. Albans.
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