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The First Emperor
Reprint. Originally published: 2007. Reissued 2009.
Worlds of Bronze and Bamboo
Sima Qian (c. 100 B.C.E.) was China's first historian—he was known as Grand Astrologer at the court of Emperor Wu during the Han dynasty—and, along with Confucius and the First Emperor of Qin, was one of the creators of imperial China. His Shiji (published for Columbia in a translation by Burton Watson as Records of the Grand Historian) not only became the model for the twenty-six Standard Histories that the historians of each Chinese dynasty wrote to legitimize the dynastic succession, but also has been an enormously influential resource to historians, literary scholars, philosophers, and many others seeking an understanding of early Chinese history. In Worlds of Bronze and Bamboo, Gran...
Reading Sima Qian from Han to Song
In Father of Chinese History, Esther Klein explores the life and work of the great Han dynasty historian Sima Qian as seen by readers from the Han to the Song dynasties. Today Sima Qian is viewed as both a tragic hero and a literary genius. Premodern responses to him were more equivocal: the complex personal emotions he expressed prompted readers to worry about whether his work as a historian was morally or politically acceptable. Klein demonstrates how controversies over the value and meaning of Sima Qian’s work are intimately bound up with larger questions: How should history be written? What role does individual experience and self-expression play within that process? By what standards can the historian’s choices be judged?
The Cloudy Mirror
Sima Qian's writings have influenced the Chinese for over 2,000 years and still serve as a fiscal source of historical information about China.
The Letter to Ren An and Sima Qian’s Legacy
Sima Qian (first century BCE), the author of Record of the Historian (Shiji), is China’s earliest and best-known historian, and his “Letter to Ren An” is the most famous letter in Chinese history. In the letter, Sima Qian explains his decision to finish his life’s work, the first comprehensive history of China, instead of honorably committing suicide following his castration for “deceiving the emperor.” In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, some scholars have queried the authenticity of the letter. Is it a genuine piece of writing by Sima Qian or an early work of literary impersonation? The Letter to Ren An and Sima Qian’s Legacy provides a full translation of the letter and uses different methods to explore issues in textual history. It also shows how ideas about friendship, loyalty, factionalism, and authorship encoded in the letter have far-reaching implications for the study of China.
The Grand Scribe's Records
This second volume of the ongoing annotated translation of Ssu-ma Ch'ien's Shi chi(The Grand Scribe's Records), widely acknowledged as the most important early Chinese history, contains the "basic annals" of five early Han-dynasty emperors. The annals trace the first century of Han rule (206 BC to ca. 100 BC) in a year-by-year account that focuses on imperial activities. In The Grand Scribe's Records, Ssu-ma Ch'ien revitalised the style of the annals he had written for previous rulers. Here are accounts of the peasant who founded the dynasty, Liu Pang, a man noted as much for his licentiousness as he was his ruthless political instinct, and of his cruel wife, Empress Lÿ, who murdered her chief rival for Liu Pang's affections in the most gruesome manner. The annals of two relatively undistinguished emperors follow. The volume concludes with Ssu-ma's depiction of perhaps the greatest ruler of the Han, Emperor Wu, told within the context of his delusive attempts to find a means to achieve immortality. When completed this translation will bring all 130 chapters of the Shih chi into English. Volumes 1 and 7 were published by Indiana University Press in 1994.
Herodotus and Sima Qian: The First Great Historians of Greece and China
In this accessible volume, Thomas R. Martin compares the writings of Herodotus in ancient Greece with those of Sima Qian in ancient China to demonstrate the hallmarks of early history writing. While these authors lived in different centuries and were not aware of each other’s works, Martin shows the similar struggles that each grappled with in preparing their historical accounts and how their efforts helped invent modern notions of history writing and the job of the historian. The introduction’s cross-cultural analysis includes a biography of each author, illustrating the setting and times in which he worked, as well as a discussion of how each man introduced interpretation and moral judgment into his writing. The accompanying documents include excerpts from Herodotus’ The Histories and Sima Qian’s Shiji, which illustrate their approach to history writing and their understanding of their own cultures. Also featured are maps and illustrations, a chronology, questions to consider, and a selected bibliography.
Historical Records
The Historical Records or Shiji is a vast history of the Chinese world from its beginnings up to the late second century BC. Its author, the Grand Historiographer Sima Qian (c. 145-86 BC), is the most famous Chinese historian and a great writer whose work has powerfully influenced Chinese and other Far Eastern literatures. The Historical Records is an immense and complex work. This translation concentrates on the vital but short-lived Qin dynasty, which unified China in 221 BC and created the vast empire that lasted until 1911. The introduction is aimed at bringing the history to a general audience, offering a lucid examination of Sima Qian in the tradition of history writing and placing the Qin dynasty in its wider historical context. This accessible new translation by one of the foremost scholars of Classical Chinese is supplemented by an index, map, and clear notes.
Peace and Peril
Emperor Wu is generally recognized as the greatest ruler of the Han Dynasty, and his wars against the steppe warrior Xiongnu as one of his greatest undertakings. To the chief narrator of these events, ancient Chinese historian Sima Qian, the turning point in Han Dynasty history was the way Emperor Wu had abandoned the policy of peaceful relations with the Xiongnu, and launched China on a series of campaigns that would last for decades. This has been almost universally accepted as truth in modern scholarship, but these claims cannot be taken at face value. Firstly, this book identifies ways in which the Shiji account is riddled with inconsistencies and deliberately misleading information, and...
Historical Records 史记
史记 "Historical Records" was written by Sima Qian, the Western Han Dynasty historian. The biographical history book is the first biographical general history in China, documented on to the ancient legend of the Yellow Emperor era, down to the Han Dynasty between the beginning four years, a total of 3,000 years of history. In 104 B.C., Sima Qian began the creation of a history book called " Tai Shi Gong Shu " which was later called “史记”, or "Historical Records". It took 14 years before and after to complete. The "Historical Records" book includes twelve Origins Volumes recording the emperor's political achievements (“十二本纪”), thirty Family Volumes remembering the vassal ...
