本文探討史學論述與語藝的關係。作者從語藝學的角度，分析當代美國史學界有關中國現代轉型的四部重要論著，分別是《中國：傳統與變革》、《儒教中國及其現代命運》、《擺脫困境─新儒學與中國政治文化的演進》、和《危機中的中國知識份子：尋求秩序與意義》。這一分析旨在說明這些史學論著缺少一個語藝學的視角，而這一缺失意味著某個「人的視角」的缺席。本文還試圖說明即使是在現有的這些論著的架構下，不少重要的「歷史事實」和「歷史發現」是在語藝的幫助下建構起來的。

This essay explores the relationship between historiographical writing and rhetoric. The author examines and discusses, from a rhetorical standpoint, four major historiographies that have substantially shaped American historical writing on the period of China’s transition to a modern state (1890s-1920s). The historiographical writings include John K. Fairbank & Edwin O. Reischauer’s China: Tradition and Transformation (Fairbank & Reischauer, 1979／陳仲丹、 潘興明與龐朝陽譯，1995), Joseph R. Levenson’s Confucian China and its modern fate (Levenson, 1968 ／鄭大華、任菁譯，2000), Thomas A. Metzger’s Escape from predicament: Neo-Confucianism and China’s evolving political culture (1977), and Hao Chang’s Chinese intellectuals in crisis: Search for order and meaning (I890-1911) (Chang, 1987 ／高力克、王躍譯，2006). The examination and discussion in this paper expresses regret for the lack of rhetorical insight into these historiographical writings. Nevertheless, the author demonstrates that even within the historiographical frameworks of these works, rhetoric has served to construct many of the historical “facts” or “findings” that those writers have claimed to be true.