我怎样撰改《清末立宪史》

摘要

Just before the republication of A History of Constitutionalism in the Late Qing Dynas- ty, which was written by my bosom friends Wei Qingyuan, Liu Wenyuan and I many years ago, I re- vised and enlarged the book to make it newer and subtler out of sense of responsibility for history and academia since the two co-authors passed away. I changed the original title into A History of Establis- hing Constitutionalism in the Late Qing Dynasty, and modified some theses and views, and changed views of the Boxer Rebellion, Reforms in Irate Qing, Constitutionalists and their Constitutional activi- ties, etc. The latest edition also added some new contents, summarized reasons for the failure of Con- stitutionalism in Late Qing and lessons we can draw from it, and overviewed the bumpy course of es- tablishing constitutionalism in China over a hundred years. We hope the book can contribute to a bet- ter understanding of Chinese history and the Socialist constitutional construction today.%我与韦庆远、刘文源二位挚友多年前合著的《清末宪政史》再版前夕，出于对历史和学术的责任心，在二位合作者已逝去的情况下，我对该书做了一些增订，力争求精求新。这次增订，除了将书名改为《清末立完史》外，主要是修改了一些论断和观点，改变了对义和团运动、清末新政、立宪派和立宪活动等的看法。增写了一些新的内容，对清末立宪失败的原因和教训予以总结，进而概述了中国百年来立宪的坎坷历程，以期提高对历史的认识，有益于当今的社会主义宪政建设。