重繪《光明之城》：前殖民都市生活倫理與後殖民全球歷史之交匯與重構

Repainting the City of Light: The Reconstruction of Life Ethics in the Pre-colonial World City and the Convergence of Postcolonial Global History

劉俊裕(Chun-Yu Liu)

《淡江史學》 20期 (2009/03) Pp. 121-137

https://doi.org/10.29712/THR.200903.0004

摘要

本文本諸猶太裔義大利商人雅各‧德安科納(Jacob D'Ancona)於西元1271年在中國泉州經商後所撰寫的遊記手稿譯本《光明之城》(The City of Light)，重新思索後殖民時期全球歷史的詮釋框架。透過手稿對泉州市民、商人、仕紳與學者在這個十三世紀（宋末元初）世界貿易都市生活的生動描述，以及作者以跨文化角度和思維，參與當時市民對生活價值、商人倫理、性別和生活倫理等種種議題的辯論記載，分析政治、經濟抉擇與日常生活價值、倫理與思維所可能產生的交互滲透性。本文主張全球歷史的論述不應持續侷限於世界政治、經濟、商業貿易與科技現代化過程，對文化價值所產生的宰制與被宰制的效應，以及現代化與否的比較思維框架中。相對的，透過前殖民城市生活空間的實際記載，以及當代（後殖民時期）泉州市對集體歷史記憶的重新形塑，本文突顯出全球歷史應更加注重對特定歷史情境的整合性詮釋與論述，嘗試從不同生活層面的思維與實踐，探究各個環節間交互滲透過程，重新建構都市生活與文化空間在物質條件優劣勝敗思維以外的整體生活面貌。

關鍵字

全球史 ； 泉州 ； 光明之城 ； 後殖民 ； 世界都市 ； 生活倫理

並列摘要

The paper reflects on the interpretation framework of global history in the postcolonial age through a close examination of historical accounts in The City of Light, a manuscript written by a Jewish Italian merchant Jacob D'Ancona who travelled to Quanzhou (Zaitun) four years before Marco Polo in 1271. Through the author's vivid description of day-to-day lives of citizens, merchants, local gentry and scholars, as well as records of controversial debates regarding city governance, social value, life ethic, gender identity and homosexuality in Quanzhou, the manuscript unveils the bright and dark sides of the pre-colonial cosmopolitan city.
The paper argues that discourses of global history should not be confined to narratives of defining winners and losers of world political, economic, commercial and technological modernization, and the dominating values that a ”superior” culture has imposed on ”others”. Rather, historians should adopt a more integrative approach which allows one to probe into the interconnected and interpenetrating life facets of a city, and make sense of the life ethic and cultural logic under a specific historical context. The postcolonial reconstruction of collective identity in Quanzhou today also reveals the citizens' selective historic memories of the past.

並列關鍵字

global history ； Quanzhou ； The City of Light ； postcolonial period ； world city ； life ethic

參考文獻

D''Ancona, Jacob,Selboume, David(Trans.)(1997).The City of Light c. 1280.London:Little Brown.

Frank, Andre Gunder(1998).ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age.California:University of California Press.

Weber, Max,Parsons, T.(Trans.)(1992).The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

Spengler, Oswald,Atkinson, Charles Francis(Trans.)(1971).The Decline of the West.

McNeill, William H.(1963).The Rise of the West. A History of the Human Community.New York:Mentor Books.