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A Conversation with Four Chinese Historians in Nanking

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Frederic Wakeman Jr
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Extract

In June 1974, I spent a month in the People's Republic of China as an interpreter and cultural advisor with the herbal pharmacology delegation from the United States Academy of Sciences. While visiting Peking, I requested, among other things, a chance to discuss Taiping historiography with Chinese historians. On 17 June, in Nanking, I was informed that this request had been granted. The next day a meeting was arranged for me with four Chinese Taiping specialists.

Type
Reports from China
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 60 , December 1974 , pp. 767 - 772
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1974

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References

1. The following remarks are as far as possible reported verbatim. I did not take notes during the conversation, but returned immediately to my hotel and reconstructed our comments as best I could from memory.

2. The analogy with Chairman Mao Tse-tung is unmistakable.

3. The system of appointing local officials to collect taxes.

4. Obviously I could not think of the word for “synarchy” in Chinese.

5. He pronounced the title in English.

6. Fu-li alluding to the current accusation that Lin Piao wished to emulate Confucius by k'o-chi fu-li (restraining the self and restoring the rites).