Title:Professor Lin Zhichun's Contribution to the Construction and Development of the World History Study in China

Author:Wang Dunshu, Professor, Faculty of History, Nankai University, Tianjin, China 300071.

Abstract:Ancient world history as a rather young subject of academic study, developed in as late as 1950s in China. To that process, Professor Lin Zhichun dedicated nearly 60 years of his life and he is the person who deserves the title of the founding father and leader of this discipline. In the 1950s, Professor Lin organized the first ancient world history graduate study program and trained generations and generations of scholars ever since. Under his guidance, younger scholars studied Marxism, learned at least two foreign languages, read the first hand data, and selected concrete subjects. He translated important work of Marx, wrote the earliest world history text by Chinese historians, and organized projects of translating varied original materials. More over, especially after the 1960s, Professor Lin published considerable amount of articles and books dealing with the newest archaeological discoveries of ancient civilizations and related theories. His systematical studies of ancient civilizations provided unique theory, pattern, and understandings for the younger scholars. In 1979, He was elected as the first Council Chair of the Chinese Ancient World History Association. In 1984, he founded the Institute for the History of Ancient World Civilizations in the Northeast Normal University, which soon started to publish theJournal of Ancient Civilizations.

Key words:Professor Lin Zhichun; the history of ancient civilizations; world history