History Department

History is among the oldest and most distinguished disciplines at Tsinghua University. In the years immediately following the University’s founding in 1911, Chinese history and Western history were already represented in its curriculum. The Department of History was formally established in 1926. Over the ensuing decades, many eminent scholars—including Wang Guowei, Liang Qichao, Chen Yinke, Lu Maode, Jiang Tingfu, Liu Chonghong, Lei Haizong, Zhang Yinlin, Wu Han, Shao Xunzheng, Wang Xinzhong, Sun Yutang, Zhou Yiliang, Ding Zeliang, and Wang Yongxing—were, at different times, members of the Department’s faculty. Together, they helped shape an academic tradition marked by the confluence of Chinese and Western learning and by a broad command of both ancient and modern history, while training successive generations of accomplished historians.

In 1952, as part of the nationwide restructuring of higher education institutions, Tsinghua’s Department of History was incorporated into Peking University and other universities. For more than three decades thereafter, Tsinghua had no independent departmental structure in History. Teaching and research in modern and contemporary Chinese history, however, continued without interruption. At the same time, fields such as the history of science and technology in China and architectural history flourished at Tsinghua. From the 1980s onwards, the University began gradually to rebuild its humanities disciplines. In 1985, the Institute of Thought and Culture was founded, with a principal focus on the intellectual and cultural history of ancient China. In 1993, the Department of History was re-established.

In 2000, the Department launched its doctoral programme in Specialised History. In 2003, the Department of History and the Institute of Thought and Culture were merged to form a new Department of History within the newly established School of Humanities and Social Sciences. In 2006, the Department inaugurated a doctoral programme in History as a first-level discipline. In 2007, Specialised History, as a second-level discipline, was designated a National Key Discipline. In 2008, History, as a first-level discipline, was listed as a Beijing Municipal Key Discipline. In the same year, the Department of History took the lead in establishing the Research and Conservation Centre for Unearthed Texts at Tsinghua University, dedicated to the conservation, collation, and scholarly study of unearthed texts, including the Tsinghua Bamboo Slips. In 2011, the Centre for the Study of Unearthed Texts and Ancient Chinese Civilisation, established primarily on the basis of this centre, was approved as a Key Research Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences under the Ministry of Education. In 2013, Tsinghua University led the establishment of the Collaborative Innovation Centre for the Study of Unearthed Texts and Ancient Chinese Civilisation, which received formal recognition from the Ministry of Education in 2014. In 2018, the Research and Conservation Centre for Unearthed Texts became a university-level research institute. In 2020, Chinese History, as a first-level discipline, was selected as a National First-Class Undergraduate Major Construction Site. In 2023, Chinese History received an A−rating in the fifth round of the Ministry of Education’s discipline evaluation.

Owing to the distinctive historical trajectory of the humanities at Tsinghua, the discipline of history, once restored, developed from a high point of departure, with a strongly international outlook and a pronounced interdisciplinary character. After more than four decades of sustained growth, and supported by the University’s rich academic environment, the Department of History today has a clearly defined profile and distinctive strengths. In the field of Chinese history, Tsinghua has brought together a strong community of scholars and built substantial expertise in ancient Chinese history, modern and contemporary Chinese history, social and economic history, intellectual history, and historical philology. Its scholarly achievements have exerted wide influence both in China and abroad. In the field of world history, the Department has made notable contributions to historical theory and historiography, the history of Sino-foreign exchanges, medieval European history, intellectual history, environmental history, and global history. These achievements have not only advanced the development of world history as a field in China, but have also contributed to Tsinghua’s standing within the international scholarly community.