Records of the Grand Historian (Volume II)
Tags
Summary
The Shiji comprises 130 chapters in total, including 12 Basic Annals (recording the achievements of rulers of successive dynasties), 30 Hereditary Houses (recording the rise and fall of vassal states and of Han-era vassals and nobles), 70 Biographies (recording the words and deeds of important figures, mainly officials, with the last chapter being the author's own preface), 10 Tables (chronologies of major events), and 8 Treatises (recording various institutions and regulations concerning rites, music, tonal systems, the calendar, astronomy, the Feng and Shan sacrifices, water conservancy, and finance). All-encompassing yet coherent and clearly organized, it faithfully records the development of politics, economy, military affairs, culture, and other aspects in high antiquity.
The Shiji is an outstanding literary work and holds an important place in the history of Chinese literature. In terms of historical value, it preserves several thousand years of historical sources and possesses extraordinary historiographical value; it is listed as the first of the Twenty-Four Histories. It pioneered the biographical-history method of recording events and has been admired by historians and scholars through the ages. In terms of literary value, its descriptive language is vivid, its images are striking, its reasoning is thorough, and its narration is flexible. Liu Xiang and others considered the book "good at ordering events and reasoning, argumentative yet not flashy, plain yet not vulgar."
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Readers with a strong interest in the history from the Warring States period to the early Han
- Those who wish to understand deeply the Shiji's narrative structure and literary value
- Readers who prefer to explore historical threads through biographies
- University students in Chinese literature and history and researchers in related fields
Not a good fit for
- Readers seeking a highly simplified or story-adapted version of the Shiji
- Those interested only in the Basic Annals of rulers and not in the Hereditary Houses and Biographies
Reading tips
- First read through the table of contents to understand the organizing logic of the Hereditary Houses and Biographies, then choose figures or families of interest as entry points
- While reading, consult maps and chronological tables to help build a framework of time and space
- Savor key chapters repeatedly, and note the evaluations and emotional tendencies embedded in Sima Qian's narration
About the publisher
China Culture and History Press has long devoted itself to modern and contemporary literature and culture-and-history reading matter, with publishing directions centered on classic works, social novels, prose and miscellaneous writings, and Eastern philosophy, alongside culture-and-history periodicals such as Zongheng. Among the more than 1,500 titles in the collection, representative books include Zhang Henshui's Ti Xiao Yin Yuan, Lu Xun's Complete Classic Works (10 volumes) and Wild Grass, and Lao She's Four Generations Under One Roof series and the boxed set of Lao She's Classic Works (10 volumes), while its author resources are concentrated on figures such as Zhang Henshui, Lu Xun, Lao She and Sima Qian. Its publishing character lies in solid editorial work on culture-and-history source texts and in issuing famous authors' works in sets, balancing the readability of individual texts with the systematic presentation of complete collections for focused reading and collecting. Beyond these directions, public information on the press's contemporary original publishing is limited, so it is not elaborated here.
Contents
- 版权信息
- 第七卷 项羽本纪第七
- 第八卷 高祖本纪第八
- 第九卷 吕太后本纪第九
- 第十卷 孝文本纪第十
- 第十一卷 孝景本纪第十一
- 第十二卷 孝武本纪第十二
- 第十三卷 吴太伯世家第一
FAQ
How does this edition differ from the original Zhonghua Book Company punctuated and collated edition?
Can I understand it without a foundation in Classical Chinese?
What does Volume 2 mainly contain?
Comments
Find this book
This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.
About the author
Sima Qian was a historian, man of letters, and thinker of the Western Han dynasty. His courtesy name was Zichang, and he was a native of Xiayang in Zuo Fengyi (present-day Hancheng, Shaanxi). Succeeding his father Sima Tan as Grand Astrologer, he traveled widely to collect historical materials. Later, having suffered punishment in connection with the Li Ling affair, he endured humiliation and devoted himself to his work, ultimately completing the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji, originally titled Taishigong shu), China's first comprehensive history in the biographical (jizhuanti) style. The work covers events from the Yellow Emperor down to Emperor Wu of Han, organizing three thousand years of history through the five sections of annals, tables, treatises, hereditary houses, and biographies. Its narrative is concise and richly literary, its characters vividly drawn, and it has been praised as "the supreme swan song of historians." Later generations have often classified his writings under historical reading and Eastern philosophy, and his influence on Chinese historiography and literature has been profound.
Shi Lei, born in 1962, graduated from Harbin Normal University and is a freelance writer and scholar. He has long worked in writing, editing, reporting and planning, and has opened columns in several media outlets, publishing more than one million words. His writing focuses on public speaking, communication training and mental health, and he has served as chief editor of several book series on the art of speaking, inspirational life guidance, the thought of world masters, and mental health, bringing practical knowledge of expression, interpersonal communication and psychological adjustment to general readers. Twenty-seven of his works are included in the library, including several volumes related to the Records of the Grand Historian, with Eastern philosophy as a common category. Public information is limited and few details of his life are recorded, but his existing works show an emphasis on practicality and readability, and a tendency to connect traditional culture with topics of everyday self-cultivation.
