[
    {
        "id": 205058,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1966",
        "page_number": 14,
        "title": "RAS-1966",
        "content_text": "A PLEA FOR A REGIONAL APPROACH TO CHINESE HISTORY:\n\nTHE CASE OF THE SOUTH CHINA COAST Based on A Lecture Delivered on 4th April, 1966\n\nJOHN J. NOLDE\n\nEver since men such as Thucydides, or Ssu-ma Ch'ien, began to collect, analyze, and interpret historical documents, they have been, from time to time, vexed by a series of nagging questions: How valid and authentic are the documents I have used? How closely does the portrait I have painted of the past correspond to the real world of the people who lived in that past? Have I, in fact, really described what was \"going on\"?\n\nOr to put the question the other way: Is there not always a danger that the historian may be led by his documents to create a picture of the past that is far too broad and general to have any relevance for the people living at that place and at that time? I wonder, for example, whether the studies of the coming of the Varangians to Russia in the ninth century have much to do with the lives and loves of the people then living along the Russian river system; or whether detailed analyses of the political structure of Renaissance Italy have much to do with the way the average Italian really lived. In short, if \"history is man's memory of what men have said and done\", to use Carl Becker's phrase, with what accuracy does the historian's tale reflect what was actually said and done? Is not the historian's view of the past not always in danger of being distorted by the zeitgeist of his own era (as Becker again would have it), and that what he may think important was of little consequence to those living at the time?\n\nI don't doubt that the certain Big Events are important, especially in terms of the extent to which they explain the general course of history, why the stream of history seemed to run in one direction and not another. Furthermore, I would be the first to agree that such events as the Pelopponesian Wars or the French Revolution did dominate the life and thoughts of the peoples living in those places at that time. But is this always, or even usually, the case?\n\nThe author is Dean of the College of Arts and Science at the University of Maine.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1966.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/bz60k0811",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 213231,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-1994",
        "page_number": 53,
        "title": "RAS-1994",
        "content_text": "32\n\nAfter the firm of Elmenhorst and Sander had closed under financial pressure, Elmenhorst was declared a bankrupt in July 1866 (DP 24 July 1866). Fritz Sander continued business under his own name. Fritz Adolph Riscius Grobien joined him as a partner in 1869 (DP 20 Apr. 1869). Mr. Grobien had formerly been an assistant in Oxford and Co. After his association with Sander ceased, he conducted a brokerage business in Hong Kong on his own account. He became a naturalised British subject in 1888 (GG 21 Feb. 1888).\n\nBrune Herbert Becker became a partner of Sander, who returned to Hamburg. When Mr. Becker left for a visit home in 1892, he appointed as his attorney in Hong Kong Gottlieb Lebricht Theodor Bunge, an employee of his firm, and his brother Albert Wilhelm Arthur Becker, from the firm of Wieler and Co. in Hong Kong. Sometime between 1896 and 1911, the two firms of Wieler and Co. in Hong Kong amalgamated under the name Sander, Weiler and Co.\n\nWieler and Co. was operating in Hong Kong in 1876 under the management of Oscar Wilhelm Wieler. Mr. Wieler returned to Germany in the year 1887, where he died on 25 August 1895. After his departure, the Hong Kong office was managed by his brother Gustav Adolph. Both the brothers had been assistants in the firm of Bourjou, Hubener and Co.\n\nAt the time of the liquidation of Sander, Wieler and Co. in 1914, the partners were G. Wieler and R. Becker of Hamburg, A. Becker of Hong Kong, A. Sander, and B. Mielek of Shanghai.\n\nMelchers and Company\n\nSiemssens and Melchers were the two largest of the German firms in China in the nineteenth century. Melchers was established at Bremen in 1806 by Anton Friedrich Carl Melchers (DP 9 Jan 1906). Sixty years later, they opened a branch in Hong Kong. The partners were Hermann Melchers and Adolf Andre (DP 30 Aug. 1866). Soon after they opened their offices at No. 4 Graham Street, the old firm of Dent and Company failed. This provided the opportunity for the German firm to acquire a large and convenient office and godown on the seafront at Pedder's Wharf (DP 21 Nov. 1868). Before the office was opened, Hermann Melchers had been an assistant in the firm of Schellhass and Company. He remained with Melchers and Company until it was liquidated in 1914. The interest",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1994.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/zk522640g",
        "rank": 0
    }
]