ZHANG XUECHENG (1738–1801), Chinese historian and philosopher. A native of Shaoxing (Kuaiji district), Zhejiang Province, and son of a district magistrate, Zhang went to Beijing as a student in 1762, and in the next ten years became acquainted with many of the leading writers of the day. Among his associates and mentors were, notably, Zhu Yun (1729–81), whom he acknowledged as his master, and the philosopher and philologue Dai Zhen (1724–77), whom Zhang admired for his philosophical essays but criticized strongly for his opposition to the ideas of the Song dynasty Confucian moralist Zhu Xi (1130–1200). As a youth Zhang developed a keen interest in the art and theory of historical writing, admiring the Tang dynasty historiographer Liu Zhiji (661–721). As early as 1770 he had begun to formulate a theory of the development of civilization based on the Han court librarian Liu Xin's theories of the history of types of writing. In...