个人简介
王国斌（R．Bin Wong），现任加州大学洛杉矶分校（UCLA.）的亚洲研究所所长，本科毕业于密歇根大学经济学系，后进入哈佛大学，师从著名历史学家费正清先生和孔飞力先生，在中国史与欧洲史方面均极有建树。王教授曾任加州大学欧文分校亚洲研究中心主任、历史与经济学讲座教授。2004年后王教授进入加州大学洛杉矶分校（UCLA.）亚洲研究所并担任所长，一直工作至今。2009年起王教授成为复旦大学社会科学高等研究所客座教授。
王国斌教授主要研究18世纪以来中国的政治、经济和社会变革模式，同时也注重与欧洲模式的比较，探索世界历史与当代全球化进程的关系。王教授辗转于经济学和历史学之间，用历史学解读经济学，用欧洲史解读中国史，是崛起的“加州学派”之中坚。著有《转变中国：历史变化和欧洲经验之局限》（1997年）等书，并在北美、东亚、欧洲先后发表了九十多篇文章。他的著作中以《转变的中国：历史变迁及欧洲经验的局限》（China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience，1997）为最著名，该书被译成多国语言出版。
问
After graduating from the Department of Economics at the University of Michigan, why did you choose to go to Harvard University to study history? And why did you focus on the history of Chinese economics? Can you introduce the development path of your academic research?
您在密歇根大学经济学系毕业后为什么选择去哈佛大学修读历史专业？又是什么机缘使您选择中国经济史这个研究方向的呢？可以简单介绍一下您的学术研究道路吗？
答
At that time in US, economic history was considered by many as one of the social sciences. And when I was an undergraduate student, one of my teachers was a famous sociology professor. I majored in economics, but I also did research on sociology, history, and political science. I wanted to do the kind of historical social science, this professor, Charles Tilly, did, so I went to graduate school in Harvard in part because it's a very good school to do European history. And in graduate school I changed my focus from European history to Chinese history.
那时候在美国，经济史是社会科学的一部分。我本科时候的导师是一位非常著名的社会学教授，因此我专业是经济学但也涉猎社会学历史以及政治学。我十分向往我导师查尔斯·蒂利所做的研究，因此我本科毕业之后去了哈佛大学攻读研究生。另外，哈佛大学的欧洲史研究也十分强，我在研究生期间起初读欧洲史，后来转换到中国史。
问
You have been to Japan for research in 1970s, what was your purpose? And what experience did you acquire?
您曾经于上世纪七十年去日本访学，您的初衷是什么？您又在学术上获得了怎样的帮助呢？
答
By then I transferred from European to Chinese history, but my interests were in broadly speaking social economic history of China. In 1970s, there was actually very little work done in US or Europe on Chinese social economic history. And at that time, the two places U.S. students could go for further study were Japan and Taiwan. Japan has a very distinguished tradition of scholarship on Chinese social economic history, And I decided that that was the tradition I wanted to learn from. In order to begin to answer the questions I had about Chinese history, I needed to go to Japan. When I was in Japan, I went to seminars and began gathering materials for my dissertation.
那时候，我的研究方向从欧洲史转向中国史， 主要在于中国社会经济史。在70年代，大陆不允许美国学生来做研究，所以日本和台湾是研究中国史可供选择的两个地点。日本对于中国社会经济史的研究十分详尽也有很悠久的传统，所以我决定去日本继续深造，当时也为我的论文收集了很多材料，也去了很多研讨会学习。
问
The frequent interaction between China's academia and foreign academia exerts great impact on international relations. But the mutual understanding is still limited because of language and even cultural barriers. What's the maindifference between China's and foreign academia on Chinese history in your point of view?
中国本土的学术界与国外的互动日趋频繁并对国际关系产生了深远影响。但由于语言乃至文化上的隔阂，国内外的互相了解仍然是十分有限的。您认为中外学术界对中国经济史学的看法有何不同？
答
Well when you say it's very limited, I would say it's getting less limited over the time with each new generation getting familiar with each other. The range of interests and types of methodologial perspective share more commonalities than before. It's true that there are different traditions of historical scholarship in each country. Because the U.S. development of modern Chinese history study was very much influenced by Professor John Fairbank it emerged out of the influences he had experienced studying British and Chinese history in the first half of the twentieth century. Now that foreign students are studying in China early in their careers, they have an opportunity to observe and evaluate Chinese approaches to Chinese history. I've sent my students quite early in their careers even before they take the exams to become PHD candidates. I hope those who are not Chinese but study Chinese history to be part of the student culture here quite early in their career. According to the students, Chinese historical circles are very different from those of earlier generations. More connections and more people are aware of multiple points of view present within China and outside China.Certain fashions of historical scholarship in the US have influenced research interests of some Chinese scholars. On the other hand, the opening of new resources in China has influenced many people in terms of recognizing the new kinds of research that can be done. The mutual influence and academic exchanges have improved the quality of scholarship and training we offer both in China and in the West.
你说有隔阂，而我认为隔阂正在逐渐地缩小——随着一代又一代的学者彼此更熟悉。眼界，方法论以及观点比起之前也有了更多的交集。诚然，每个国家都有不同的研究传统。中国史的研究最早受到费正清教授的很大影响，尤其是他对于20世纪前半叶中国史以及英国史的研究。现在学习中国史的外国学生有机会能在学术生涯较早的时候就来到中国，观察并评价中国学者，研究中国式的方法。我也经常会派一些研究中国史的学生来中国学习，他们有的还没有参加博士生入学考试。我希望那些有志于研究中国史的学生能很早地感受并沉浸在中国学术文化里。我也通过他们知道，中国历史圈和早些时候有了很大的不同。观点有了更多的联系，人们对于意见分歧也越来越包容。国际之间的这种影响是相互的，美国研究方法对于中国学者的研究产生了影响，中国史料的开放也对国际学者产生了影响，让他们意识到还有许多主题值得研究。这种相互的影响和学术交流有助于提高中国以及国际的学术质量。
问
Your influential book China Transformed: Historical Change and the Limits of European Experience aroused widespread arguments. Could you introduce your creative process? Why did you choose Europe to compare with china? And China and Europe themselves are all complicated, what's your biggest problem when you make the comparison?
您的作品《转变中国：历史变化和欧洲经验之局限》引起了学术界的热烈讨论，能否谈一谈您的创作过程？为什么会选择将中国和欧洲进行比较呢？无论是欧洲还是中国本身都是很复杂的，在比较的过程中您遇到的最大的困难是什么？
答
The immediate reason at that time was because of training under Professor Charles Tilly during my undergraduate period. He was one of my most important mentors. I visited him every year until he passed away in 2008. For thirty years, we met each year even though we moved to different universities. His historical research focus was on Europe and how it influenced the world. Basic modern social science about how society works initially and most importantly is based on the understanding of European history. It's impossible to understand economics without understanding how the discipline developed through evaluating European economic history. I wrote that book in the period when not many have done systematic comparison between European and other parts of world. The formation of nationalstate making in Europe had to be fundamentally different from that in China.The problems and issues remain very visible today I think. It continues to be a theme many scholars are studying. Three years after the book came out, my colleague at that time Kenneth Pomeranz came out with The Great Divergence.The book was a start of bringing in more awareness of the importance of taking Chinese history seriously in the West. One of the goals of both of those books is to bring Chinese experiences to an understanding of social science history.European history remains intellectually more important because it supplies the empirical foundations of social science. To improve social science knowledge means understanding how other experiences fit into social science and China Transformed was my first effort to address the comparison between Chinese and European patterns of economic and political transformation and their relationsto social protests, large and small.
当时选择这个主题的原因最直接是因为受到了我本科时间导师查尔斯·蒂利的启蒙与影响。他是我人生中最重要的导师之一。毕业之后的每年我都会去拜访他，如此长达三十年，直至2008年老师去世。他的历史研究兴趣主要在欧洲方面以及欧洲史对与世界的影响。现代社会学有关社会是如何运作的理解是离不开对于欧洲史的理解的，是基于对欧洲历史的理解的。相应的，为了理解社会经济如何运作必须先理解欧洲经济是如何运作的以及其历史进程。我在写这本书的时候，还没有学者做过很多有关欧洲历史以及其他国家历史的系统性比较的相关研究。欧洲国家区域的形成在本质上就和中国有很大的差异。这些问题和差异时至今日都很显著。这种差异也始终是当代学者一直在关注研究的主题。在我发表这本书的三年后，我的同事Kenneth Pomeranz教授写了一本书叫《大分流》，这也是十分正常的。我认为这本书是一个起点，一个让西方学者也意识到中国历史是十分关键的重要的起始点。写这本书的目的之一就是引入中国经验来理解社会学历史。当然欧洲史仍是更加重要的，因为欧洲史是整个社会科学的基石。我们要理解其他经验也能适用于社会学研究来推进社会学的发展。《转变中国》这本书便是我的第一次尝试和努力，将中国和欧洲经济政治变革的模式进行比较，也包括大大小小社会运动的联系。
问
You have studied the eighteenth century Chinese social governance model. What lessons could be drawn from the research to help streamlining administration and governance in recent China?
您对十八世纪中国政府治理模式有一定的研究，您认为这对现如今的中国政府权力及社会治理有何借鉴意义？
答
My interest in governance emerged when I attended the conference organized by Professor Deng Zhenglai as a Distinguished Guest Professor of the Fudan University Institute for Advanced Study in Social Sciences.Economics and political science have different definitions of governance andgovernance discussed in China is different than that discussed in the West even though it includes overlapping meanings. One of the extremely important and complicated issues in social science is to clarify different meanings to terms used in different intellectual and political contexts. It's my strong belief that Chinese tradition of governance dates back to the 6th century B.C. Confucianism, broadly conceived to include ideas often associated with Legalism, is the foundation of Chinese governance. Outside Europe, China is the best documented historical records civilization we have. Sometimes China is better recorded than Europe. Chinese governance in the present has linkages to the past. For foreigners to understand Chinese governance, it's important for them to notonly understand what they're familiar with, but also recognize the differences and the reasons for them.
我对政府治理模式的关心缘于复旦大学社会科学高等研究院院长邓正来教授邀请我作为复旦大学特邀客座教授参加的一次聚集学界政界的交流会议 。经济学以及政治学对于治理这个词的定义是不同的，而中国讨论的治理模式又和西方讨论的治理模式又很大的不同，尽管也存在相融的部分。因此在不同的文化以及政治背景下，对于治理模式的在学术上的准确定义在社会学研究中是最重要也是最复杂的问题。我认为中国的治理模式追溯到公元前六世纪的孔夫子文化，也包含了法家的理念。中国是除欧洲之外最完善记录的文明，甚至有时比欧洲纪录得还要详尽，有很多值得研究的地方。中国的治理模式和历史息息相关，而对于那些想要理解中国治理模式的外国人，他们必须要认识到并且接受差异的存在。
问
The actual history exist exclusively but only God knows what has happened when everything becomes history. As we all know econometrics tries everything to approach the real parameter. Thenwhat's the method history research use to approach the reality of history?
真实的历史应该是唯一存在的，但是事情一旦成为历史，恐怕就只有上帝知道到底发生过什么。正如计量经济学用了很多方法，希望估计出尽可能靠近真值的参数，那么历史学是用什么方法，去尽可能地接近历史的真相的？如果研究历史的目的至少有一部分是为了了解历史真相的话。
答
Firstly, history pursues variety of subject questions and uses various types of theory to address problems. Methodology is borrowed or drawn from very different disciplines. So there's no one method that historians use. Social science history is a kind of history to create hypotheses that are confirmed or undermined by producing case studies and data. To reach the elements of similarity and difference across human history, we need more data and more careful evaluation of causal mechanisms at work in different cases. In my point of view, one of the challenges of political science and economic history is that we often formulate models with several causal mechanisms linking economic and political practices that depend upon multiple variables produce regression. I'm not sure that the conceptual logic of these models always has much foundation empirically. History tries to explain the shared elements that create more general patterns and identify the distinct elements that explain why some differences can persist over many centuries.
首先历史试图回答不同种类的问题，也用不同的原理来解决不同的问题。经济史的研究方法也基于不同的经济学原理，所以说不能说历史学家用的是某种单一的方法来做研究。社会科学历史是一门通过创造假设并用数据来印证假设的历史学科。为了尽可能达到简洁且能够体现人类历史中的差异，充分的数据点以及谨慎地对不同情况下的因果机制进行评估是必须的。我认为，政治学以及经济史面临的挑战之一便是有很多参数很多的复杂模型回归以及背后经济与政治交叉的因果机制。很难说这些复杂的模型机制是否适用于现实。总体来说，历史学就是在尝试解释构成不同社会间相同模式的共有因素，也辨别并且解释那些导致不同国家不同社会模式不同点的因素。
采访及整理：陆冠文
返回顶部
