The literary era since 1979

"Jingle Bell."

The postman rode his bicycle, shuttling through the streets and alleys, delivering letters one by one, and soon it was Fangyan's turn.

He put a stack of letters into the mailbox, then knocked on the iron ring on the door and shouted something loudly.

When the postman was about to disappear at the entrance of the alley, Gong Xing opened the door, took the letter, and turned back to the study.

At this moment, Fangyan was concentrating on the creation of "Hunting". He stopped writing when he heard a knock on the door.

"They are all letters addressed to you. Some are from Yao Ming, some are from Ruoxue, and some are from Jiahe and Shaw Brothers."

Gong Xing walked up to him and handed it to him.

Fang Yan was the first to open the envelopes from Golden Harvest and Shaw Brothers, which contained handwritten letters from Zou Wenhuai and Fang Yihua.

The contents of the two letters were surprisingly similar. Both stated that they had sent people north to contact the Film Bureau for cooperation, and that the progress was very smooth. After a lot of talk, they said that they had met Pan Yaoming, their copyright agent, and the negotiations were quite pleasant.

As for the terms of the contract, both parties confirmed that they were correct and were waiting for his signature, and the contract took effect immediately.

I looked at the two contracts sent with the letter, and then read the last few paragraphs of the letter. The words between the lines revealed Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest's attention and urgency to the script. They asked about the progress of the creation, the details of the script, the arrangement of the filming, etc. Perhaps the only difference is -

Shaw Brothers asked questions about everything, no matter how big or small, while Golden Harvest gave them complete autonomy.

"what happened?"

Seeing her man shaking his head and laughing, Gong Xing was very surprised.

"It's quite similar to what the heads of the two companies do."

Fangyan muttered to himself, then looked up and asked about the storyboard script of "Baby Smart Star".

"It's almost done." Gong Xing said, "But are you really going to recommend me as the assistant director of "Baby Smart Star"? "

Fang Yan nodded and said, "The filming of this movie is not difficult, it is very suitable for a new director like you to participate."

Gong Xing opened his mouth: "But I'm afraid..."

"Don't be afraid. You are here to learn and assist as an assistant director."

Fang Yan comforted him, "With the Shaw Brothers' director and team here, there won't be any big trouble. Besides, I'll be there to back you up."

Gong Xing pursed his lips and said, "But will Shaw Brothers agree to let me, an actor-turned-director, join the crew?"

"How is it impossible!"

Fangyan volunteered to take a part-time job in "Baby Smart Stars", so it was easy to arrange an assistant director and role actor for him.

Hearing this, Gong Xing was completely relieved and smiled: "Since you said so, I will give it a try."

After a while of sweet talk, Fangyan opened Pan Yaoming's letter, which involved two things.

The first is to confirm that the contract between Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest has no legal loopholes or traps, so you can sign it with confidence.

The second is where the two sums of money will go after the contract is signed. Will they be invested in stocks, real estate, or even parking spaces in Hong Kong as usual, or will they be invested in Japanese yen and foreign exchange speculation, or will there be other investment plans? Just as he was thinking seriously, Gong Xing suddenly exclaimed:

“You won a prize!”

"Oh, what prize?"

"Ruoxue said you won the Pulitzer Prize for History."

"Really!"

Fang Yan took the letter from Gong Xing and saw that Bai Ruoxue congratulated him on winning the award for his book "Guns, Viruses, and Steel" in the letter.

This year's Pulitzer Prize, like previous ones, will have hundreds of judges from all over the United States gather at various colleges of Columbia University at the end of March to review works in multiple genres including journalism, literature, history, music, and drama.

Then in early April, three nominated works in each category will be selected and a report will be submitted to the final review committee. The selection results will generally be announced and awarded by the president of Columbia University in late April or early May.

The Pulitzer Prize in History is the only award that does not require the author to be an American citizen. Any book about American history can win the award.

But precisely because of this, the entire jury had serious disagreements over whether "Guns, Viruses, & Steel" could win the award.

The opposing party believes that the book "Guns, Viruses, and Steel" is not a historical work strictly speaking. Even if it is a historical work, it is not a work that specializes in the study of American history, and it is not qualified to be selected for the Pulitzer History Prize!
The supporters disagreed, saying that the Pulitzer Prize for History only stipulates that works that study American history are eligible for the nomination. Although Guns, Viruses, and Steel is not a monograph on American history, it does discuss American history.

It is of particular breakthrough significance for the study of American history. America may not be America’s America, but America is definitely America’s America!
The disagreement among the entire jury quickly spread to the entire media and academic circles along with the announcement of this year's Pulitzer Prize list.

Newspapers such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the San Francisco Daily News all did extensive coverage and commentary.

These newspapers were obviously carefully selected before being sent back to the country by Bai Ruoxue along with the letter. They basically contained positive reviews and compliments.

But in fact it is true, and the American historical community, far across the ocean, soon sparked a heated discussion.

Most scholars support dialects, but there are still a few people who criticize them.

It is believed that writers like Fangyan do not have the professional knowledge of historians at all, and the book "Guns, Viruses, and Steel" is not a real historical work at all, but is purely a "reading for history amateurs" that is sensational and eye-catching.

But the opposite happened. Since the mid-19th century, when the German historian Leopold von Ranke founded the Ranke School, which marked the beginning of the modern historical school, with the development of social sciences, the analytical historical school represented by Fernand Braudel and the postmodern historical school represented by Michel Foucault came into being.

Among them, of course, the environmental history school is indispensable.

For example, the French Annales School focused on studying the constraints of geography and climate on human activities and the frequent adaptation of humans to their specific environment, while the American Frontier History School discovered more drastic changes in nature since modern times, but was blindly arrogant about the ecological impacts that could lead humanity to an abyss of irretrievable disaster.

Guns, Viruses, and Steel combines the strengths of the French Annales School and the American Frontier History School. It is undoubtedly a classic work of the environmental history school and has been discussed, studied, analyzed, extended, questioned, and criticized...

The rise of the Chinese School of Environmental History is generally recognized in later textbooks as starting with Fang Dialect's "Guns, Viruses, and Steel". And precisely because "Guns, Viruses, and Steel" won the Pulitzer Prize for History, the domestic academic community has increasingly attached great importance to historical research.

In fact, many students and teachers have begun to study Fang Yan's series of historical works, and not only regard Fang Yan as "the first person to introduce environmental history", but also one of the founders of the Chinese environmental history school, although he does not have any systematic academic works.

Although there was some controversy in the early 21st century, in 1985, when the news that Fangyan had won the Pulitzer Prize for History spread in the mainland, the entire literary world and even the whole country were in an uproar, and the enthusiasm was comparable to winning the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Although, most people don’t know what the Pulitzer Prize in History is. (End of this chapter)