World history is very interesting: Yuan Tengfei talks about Japanese history

Chapter 1 Yuan Tengfei's Preface

Dear readers, the book before you is the first book in my "World History Is Interesting" series.

With the rapid development of China's economy, "warehouses know etiquette", humanities and social sciences are getting more and more attention, and history books have gradually become bestsellers.However, looking at the current historical publications, most of them are domestic historical publications.However, Chinese people's understanding of history is still limited to several time periods that often appear in historical dramas: the dispute between Chu and Han, the Three Kingdoms, Wu Zetian and Yang Guifei, and the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Most of them are ignorant of world history.

The current trend of global integration is becoming more and more obvious, and China is actively integrating into the world.Economically, it took China 30 years to complete what developed countries did in 200 years.Along the way, there are experiences and lessons. Learning from experience and avoiding detours is the most important thing.There is a couplet on the upper floor of the Zhengyi Temple Theater in Beijing: Acting joys and sorrows, there is no substitute for the past in the present;Taking history as a mirror can tell the ups and downs, and taking the history of foreign countries as a mirror can also show gains and losses.Therefore, understanding world history is particularly urgent in today's China.

I think that the reason why Chinese people are not as enthusiastic about world history as they are about national history is not only that they cannot understand the original works, but also that the translation cannot be "credible, expressive, and elegant".There are also many world history books written by Chinese on the market. I think they can be roughly divided into two categories: academic and joking.The academic style is too serious, and it is more suitable for teaching materials and extracurricular readings for university-related majors, not for non-professionals; while the joking style is too out of place for ridicule, and the amount of information is insufficient.So, take off and not be talented, stick to my historical narrative style, combine the strengths of academic and joking styles, take care of details, tell stories, and tell jokes while narrating major historical events in a country.

Compared with the history of China, the history of the world is even more vast, with a huge span of time and space.Therefore, this set of "World History is Interesting" tells the history of several world powers by country.I have little knowledge, and I have no intention of writing it as a general history of various countries. I just want to capture interesting and thought-provoking points in the history of various countries, so that readers and friends can smile and sigh at the same time.

In this set of books, the first to meet you is the history of Japan.Among foreign histories, I am most familiar with Japanese history. There are no less than a hundred books in my home collection, especially referring to a large number of original translations from Hong Kong and Taiwan.When Chinese people read Japanese history, they are most interested in the passages of the Warring States Period, the end of the Tokugawa period, and Japan’s invasion of China. Because there are too many works written on these contents, I have spent a lot of time on Japan’s antiquity, the Genpei War, and the Southern and Northern Dynasties.As for the Japanese War of Aggression against China and the Pacific War, they have been extensively covered in my books "This History Is Reliable" and "This Is What War Is About", so I won't repeat them in this book.

I sincerely hope that this set of books will allow you to easily understand the history of the world, and will be recognized and liked by you.

(End of this chapter)