借鉴与发展:中国当代社会史研究的总体运思

中国当代社会史亦称中国现代社会史、中华人民共和国社会史,是研究1949年中华人民共和国成立以来中国社会发展变化及其规律的一门学问。它既是中国现代史的分支,也是中国社会史的分支,还是社会学、人类学的分支,也可说是研究方法和视角,相互之间并不是非此即彼的关系。其研究对象是中国当代民间社会和普通民众的所有历史,不仅包括社会构成、社会生活、社会关系,也包括民间社会、普通民众的政治、经济、文化等。其研究的理论与方法是多元化的,除了马克思主义唯物史观以外,还强调"自下而上"的视角、整体史观和相关学科理论的借鉴。资料来源也是多样化,既有文献资料,也包括实物资料、视觉资料等,其中特别值得注意的是民间文献、口述资料和文学资料。中国当代社会史尚处于初级阶段,应"专通并举",相互促进,既应着力于具体研究,在学习和借鉴已有成功论著的基础上前进,又要努力构建较为合理的中国当代社会通史体系,明确其研究内容、历史分期、基本线索等。这一任务非一蹴可就,须逐步完善。

Reference and Development: General Tendency of Researches of Social History

The social history of contemporary China researches the social development,changes and rule,whose research objects include social formation,social life,social relationship,folk society as well as politics,economics and culture of the commoners.Its research methods and theory are diverse,such as historical materialism,the angle of "from above to below",complete view of history and relative theory.The sources of materials are also diverse,including physical information,visual information,folk literature,oral information and literary information.The social history of contemporary China is in the initial stage,so special history and general history are both needed to promote each other,forming a proper system of social history of contemporary China.Research contents,historical division,basic clue and so on should be made clear,which will be improved gradually.