Gu Jiegang

Gu Jiegang (1893–1980) was a modern Chinese historian and folklorist, and the founder of the Doubting Antiquity School. A native of Suzhou, Jiangsu, he graduated from Peking University in 1920 and proposed the theory of the “layered accumulation” of ancient Chinese history. He edited the journal Gushi Bian and opened up modern research in historical geography and folklore studies; in his later years he led the collation and punctuation of the Zizhi Tongjian and the Twenty-Four Histories. His works span history, Eastern philosophy, social culture, biography and education, including Contemporary Chinese Historiography, the four-volume Annotated Shujing, the Lectures on National History series and his autobiography, combining solid textual scholarship with clear, orderly writing for general readers.