In September 2022, Area Studies officially became a first-level discipline of the interdisciplinary category in China, and this year marks the fifth anniversary of the founding of the Institute of Area Studies of Peking University (PKUIAS). In recent days, PKUIAS has therefore held a series of academic activities, inviting experts and scholars from various disciplines to share their views and thoughts on area studies.

On the morning of April 28, the first lecture of the Youth Salon's series of lectures marking the 5th anniversary of PKUIAS was held at No. 66 Yannanyuan. Prof. Zhang Xingang, a young scholar from the School of History and Culture, Shandong University, was invited to give a lecture on the theme of “Area and Civilization in the View of Ancient History” and discuss with the participants on related research. The salon was chaired by Prof. Zan Tao, deputy director of PKUIAS.

To begin with, Prof. Zhang introduced the topic by pointing out the changes in the names of certain departments in Western universities in recent years. For example, the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago has been changed to the “Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (West Asia & North Africa),” and Oxford University has renamed its Oriental Institute as Faculty of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies last year. Such changes show reflection and correction by Western researchers on their previous perspectives of colonialism and imperialism, which has been a trend in academia in recent years. Zhang pointed out that the ancient history of the Mediterranean and even the Eurasian continent was mainly written by Greece and Rome. The empires and nomadic peoples of the Asian continent did not leave enough written materials over a long period of time, so related research relies more on reconstruction based on archaeological findings. In this salon, Prof. Zhang investigated the interaction of civilizations in three different ancient geographical areas over a long period of time and re-clarified and evaluated the original intention and influence of ancient historians from the perspective of area and civilization to try to think beyond tradition and set a new research framework.

First, Zhang pointed out that the ancient history of Eurasia, especially the Mediterranean, was formed by the interaction of three major civilizations: the Mediterranean, centered on Greece and Rome; continental empires, such as Persia, Parthia and the Sasanians; and the Eurasian steppes where the nomads lived. Next, Prof. Zhang clearly limited the time period he would be discussing to the span from the 8th century BC to the 5th century AD because the three major civilizations were mainly established during the 8th century BC. The nomads on the Eurasian steppes generally arose in the 8th century BC, when the city-states of ancient Greece were rising and ancient Rome was built. The Lydian empire on the Asian continent arose around the 7th century BC, and then the Persian Empire, in the 6th century BC. In the 5th century AD, the Western Roman Empire finally collapsed. From the 8th century BC to the 5th century AD, Greece and Rome left abundant written materials, while the continental empires and nomadic peoples left relatively few, so our mainstream understanding of the history of this area is mainly from a Greek or Roman perspective. However, the one-perspective narrative fails to help us to objectively evaluate the roles played by the other two civilizations in history. For example, when Thucydides recorded the Peloponnesian War, he noted that Athens was not defeated by Sparta, but by the civil strife in its own city-state. It was Persia that essentially determined the outcome of the war in the end, because Persia’s assistance to Sparta contributed to the former’s victory. With respect to such limitations, Prof. Zhang stated that the three civilizations can function as independent variables of ancient history to form a new explanation pattern, thereby restoring a more complete history of interactive forms that is closer to reality.

Subsequently, Prof. Zhang explained the interaction of the three civilizations as evidenced by the long development process of the Mediterranean and Eurasia, and by further studying two specific cases. One was the Histories written by Herodotus. From a traditional Greek viewpoint, this book tells the history of Greco-Persian War, and describes the Greek victory over Persia as a war of freedom versus slavery. But if we look at the war from the Persian angle, it is a history of the rise and fall of Persia, which dwells much on how the borders of the Persian Empire were limited by nomadic peoples such as Greeks and Scythians, and how the Persian imperial ideology influenced the governance pattern of Athens and Sparta. The other case was the Roman Empire between the 3rd and 5th century. At that time, Asian empires and nomadic peoples played a decisive role in the history of the Roman Empire. For example, the Sasanians’ continuous battles with the Roman Empire wore it down and affected the organizational form and financial situation of Roman army. In addition, Attila the Hun exerted direct pressure on the Germans and the Roman Empire, which finally caused the collapse of Western Roman Empire.

In the end, Prof. Zhang returned to the classical statement of Herodotus, reclarified his original intention and evaluated his influence from the above perspective. Zhang noted that the Histories by Herodotus is often regarded as the progenitor of many binary distinctions. From his book, we can learn the difference between politics and autocracy, freedom and slavery, and even civilization and barbarism. Zhang stated that, although Herodotus’ work highlighted the contrast in these categories, his original intention in writing it was to record the great achievements of mankind, including the Greeks and other nations, and to record the reason for the wars among them, a universal topic for discussion. If we take another look at Herodotus’ original intention from the perspective of the interaction of three civilizations, we can expand our understanding of the overall context of ancient history or the several key nodes of interaction within it.

Prof. Zan commented on the lecture given by Prof. Zhang. Prof. Zan said that Prof. Zhang’s reflection on the process of knowledge building and historical construction from a unique viewpoint was necessary for Chinese literary academia to finally establish systematic research on foreign cultures and different civilizations. He concluded that Prof. Zhang’s thinking had three characteristics. First, it is cross-regional, which means this ternary perspective is more innovative than the traditional single or dual perspective. Second, it no longer regards the so-called Western classics as pure classics, but advocates seeking truth from facts from the perspective of history. Third, it both deconstructs and reconstructs the historical narrative of Herodotus.

Associate Prof. Zhang Yongle, deputy director of PKUIAS, recognized the significance of the perspective of interaction between civilizations and areas proposed by Prof. Zhang Xingang, especially for further in-depth research on the narratives of Western civilization. The European civilization narratives we are familiar with since modern ages often trace back to Greece and Rome. However, if we were to return to the historical scene, we would find that Greece and Rome were actually situated in the Mediterranean region and closely interacted with West Asia and North Africa and even wider areas. This is in contrast to how modern European intellectual elites deliberately chose to construct civilization consciousness, so separated Greece and Rome from the Mediterranean and took it for part of the orthodox European civilization, thereby building their knowledge system. Therefore, it is significant for knowledge reconstruction to restore the formed “orthodoxy” to the original and unorganized state.

At the end of the salon, Prof. Zhang Xin’gang exchanged ideas with the teachers and students on the relationship between archeology and ancient history. This lecture provided participants with a deeper understanding of the area and civilization in the view of ancient history.