International Congress of Historical Sciences makes a giant leap away from Eurocentrism to China

Historians' efforts to avoid having their research too colored by a Western point of view have been successful on the whole, says Robert Frank, a French historian and secretary-general of the 22nd International Congress of Historical Sciences.

"The program of the 22nd ICHS, with China as one of the major themes, was a good attempt to escape Eurocentric history, or history centered on the West," Frank said at Jinan in East China on Sept 3.

The 22nd ICHS was held from Aug 23 to 29 in Jinan, capital of Shandong province. The area around the city has a long history, having been inhabited for more than 4,000 years. The conference is held every five years.

"For the first time, the world congress was held in Asia and outside of Europe and the so-called 'Europeanized world'. Never have so many participants attended a congress: more than 2,700 people. Never have so many states been represented in a congress: 90 countries and regions. Never have so many historians of developing countries been able to come," Frank says.

Marjatta Hietala, president of the 22nd ICHS and a professor of general history at the University of Tampere in Finland, said at the closing ceremony: "For years, we have aimed to bring the conference from a solely European orientation toward a true global community of historian." The conference, he said, shows "that we have reached this goal".

Frank says the global and transnational cast of the Jinan conference was clear from its program.

The first major theme of the congress, China from Local Perspectives, was led by Wang Jianlang, a Chinese historian from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and Maria Dolores Elizalde from the Spanish National Research Council. Thirteen scholars from 10 countries, including Italy, France, Japan and Switzerland, gave lectures on different aspects of China, especially the relationship between China and the rest of the world.

Among them, French scholar Pierre Singaravelou gave a lecture on his study of Tianjin, the largest port city in northern China at the beginning of the 20th century. Singaravelou said Tianjin could be considered a laboratory of globalization in the 1900s.

"So many world-renowned historians began to do research on China - this has never been seen at previous congresses," says Zhang Haipeng, head of the Association of Chinese Historians.

Serge Gruzinski, a French historian who specializes in Latin America, won the first CISH-Jaeger-LeCoultre History Prize, described as the international prize for history, for his pioneering work on questions of global and transnational history.

"It is global history itself that restores to the historical landscape its thickness, complexity, diversity and ambiguity, which have too often been erased by Western history or national history. Can we still examine the European Renaissance without the countries of Islam, without China, India or Japan? How can we think of the New World, paying no attention to these major actors in the 16th century world?" Gruzinski says.

"A few years ago, I tried to reread the conquest of Mexico in the light of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) of China in a book entitled The Eagle and the Dragon. Hence, I realized that we could not write a line of history, even the history of the Americas, without having in mind the past of this great country and the scope - very often abysmal - of our ignorance," he says.

Marco Jorio of the Swiss Academy of Sciences says the congress coming to China is the first step in ending Eurocentrism in historical sciences.

"And, this is just a beginning. We've seen so many European and American studies on China, we now expect a stronger presence of China in the international discussion. For example, what is Chinese opinion on the 17th century presence of Jesuits in China? We have so many European views. It will be interesting to have another perspective, and that will be the future of historical studies," Jorio says.

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