Page "Chinese historiography" Paragraph 71

From the beginning of Communist rule in 1949, until the 1980s, when China was in the early years of economic reform, the focus was largely on peasant life, as interpreted via the officially sanctioned Marxist theory of class struggle.

From the time of Deng Xiaoping onwards, there has been a drift of focus towards a Marxist-inspired, moderated by Conficianism, nationalist perspective, and consideration of China's contemporary international status became of paramount importance in historical studies.

The current focus tends to be on specifics of civilization in ancient China, and the general paradigm of how China has responded to the dual challenges of interactions with the outside world and modernization in the post-1700 era.

Long abandoned as a research focus among most Western scholars due to postmodernism's influence, it remains the primary interest for most historians inside China.