Meng Sen

Meng Sen (1869–1938), courtesy name Sunsun and literary name Xinshi, was a native of Wujin, Jiangsu, and one of the founders of the modern discipline of Qing history. He studied law and political science in Japan in his early years, and after the founding of the Republic of China turned to historical research, teaching successively at Central University and Peking University. He pioneered the study of the Manchu founding period and of Ming and Qing dynastic history. His representative works include Lectures on Qing History, Lectures on Ming History, and A Comprehensive Chronicle of the Ming, Yuan, and Qing Lineages. This library holds twenty of his works, including The Early History of the Qing and the Old Peking University lecture series. His dynastic-history lectures are clearly organized and firmly grounded in textual criticism, with attention to institutional change and source analysis; they have long been regarded as classic introductions to and studies of Ming and Qing history, exerting a profound influence on later teaching and research in the field.