Studying your national history in foreign country

Many of my professors were Chinese, but they studies in Usa and gained their PHD.strangly, they researched Chinese history in USA. Do the scholars from a nation which has long history always study their own culture, history, seldom studying foreign history.

The U.S. is a nice place to study many things. It has great research libraries. I was pretty unhappy when I discovered that it was easier for me to find books on Spanish classical literature in the U.S. than it was in Mexico.

At the same time, doing primary research is very hard outside of the country that one is studying.

A while ago I shared an article that was comparing research done in the U.S. about Mexico and that done in Mexico. The Mexican research was a lot better because they have the archives there. The U.S. research was more interpretative, which I think it has a place, but it is not as strong as archival research.

You are right, they do buy it. At Berkeley they had some nice classical papyri that the graduate students got to play with.

But there are certain archives that you will not find them except in the country of orgin. And I believe that this is going to be the case for a lot of people interested in modern history.

I miss two things from Berkeley: its food and its libraries

Sorry for the delay. The food in Berkeley is excellent. They have several bakeries with the best French bread. They have cheese co-op stores which let's you eat fine cheese for little money. There are many gourmet super markets as well, and you got your choice on ethnic food.

They also have many independent coffee houses. The one problems with them is that they burn the coffee because it is the traditional "West Coast" roast, but the pastries are wonderful.

And the university also had the good sense of bringing some of these people to run their food services. Yum!

Originally posted by tommy Do the scholars from a nation which has long history always study their own culture, history, seldom studying foreign history.

I presume there are two parts to this question-a) Why scholors from old countries  always study their own history etc. in foreign countries?; b)Do they not study history of the foreign country where they  presently reside?

 a)No , not always. But it is not uncommon either.For instance, the Universities in Germany have built up a commendable collection of Oriental MSS  specially of Sanskrit , Pali and other Indian languages . Similarly the India Library , the British Museum in London has a sizeable collection of Indian MSS and artifacts.Why these countries have such a collection - is because of historical reasons.
Indian scholors who research Vedic, Bhuddist, Jain etc. sujects do often refer to MSS , epigraphs, paintings etc. available in these foreign countries.

b) There are innumerable instances of immegrants studying and producing great works about their host country


Edited by sreenivasarao s - 10-Apr-2007 at 16:35

From what I understand, Chinese food in the U.S. is not like real Chinese food. But then, that is the case with most world food in the U.S.

The issues also becomes more complicated with Chinese food because there were immigrants since the 19th century, so the food in the area has evolved ever since.

That said, I liked it, especially the vegetarian kind. :)

I don't know how much buying power most students have. I would guess that they don't have that much. I never went to the really good restaurants of the area, but if you want to go, they are there.

I hope that you can go to Berkeley. In the mean time, you can listen to listen to lectures in this site:

http://itunes.berkeley.edu/