Gu Jiegang (1893—1980) was a native of Wu County in Jiangsu Province (today’s Suzhou). After his graduation from Department of Philosophy of Peking University in 1920, Gu worked as an assistant in the university and later a professor at a number of universities, namely Sun Yat-sen University, Yenching University (at the same time dean of its Department of History), Yunnan University, Cheeloo University, National Central University, Fudan University, Lanzhou University and Chengming College of Arts. Moreover, Gu took successive posts as a research fellow at the National Academy of Peiping, a corresponding research fellow and academician of the Institute of History and Philology of Academia Sinica, chief editor of Journal of Literature and History and editorial director of Greater China Publishing House while serving as its general manager. After the founding of new China, Gu Jiegang was appointed a number of positions, including a research fellow and member of the academic committee at the Institute of History of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, director of the Chinese Society of Historiography, a member of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, vice-chairman of the Research Association of Chinese Folk Literature and Art, a member of the Central Committee of China Association for Promoting Democracy, a deputy of the fourth and fifth National People’s Congress and a member of the second to fourth sessions of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. As the founder of the school of “Gu Shi Bian” (a school advocating the research method of studying formation of ancient Chinese history via rigorous text research), Gu introduced the theory that the ancient Chinese history was formed in a stratum mode (“Ceng Lei” as he put it). Meanwhile, he was considered as the founding father of historical geography and the study of folklore in China as well. Gu chaired the project of proofreading and punctuation for Zi Zhi Tong Jian (History as a Mirror) and Er Shi Si Shi (The Twenty-Four Histories). He authored such monographs as Gu Shi Bian (Study of History via Text Research), Han Dai Xue Shu Shi Lue (A Brief History of Academics in the Han Dynasty), Liang Han Zhou Zhi Kao (A Textual Study of the County Systems of Han Dynasties) and Zheng Qiao Zhuan (A Life of Zheng Qiao). Gu was also a co-author of San Huang Kao (The Investigation of Three Emperors), Zhong Guo Jiang Yu Yan Ge Shi (A History of the Evolution of China’s Territory) and Zhong Guo Li Shi Di Tu (Historical Atlas of China), etc.
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