The Shiji, often known in English as Records of the Grand Historian or The Grand Scribe's Records, is a Chinese historical text that is the first of the Twenty-Four Histories of imperial China. It was written during the late 2nd and early 1st centuries BC by the Han dynasty historian Sima Qian, building upon work begun by his father Sima Tan. The work covers a 2,500-year period from the age of the legendary Yellow Emperor to the reign of Emperor Wu of Han in the author's own time, and describes the world as it was known to the Chinese of the Western Han dynasty.[1]
The Shiji has been called a "foundational text in Chinese civilization".[2] After Confucius and Qin Shi Huang, "Sima Qian was one of the creators of Imperial China, not least because by providing definitive biographies, he virtually created the two earlier figures."[3] The Shiji set the model for all subsequent dynastic histories of China. In contrast to Western historiographical conventions, the Shiji does not treat history as "a continuous, sweeping narrative", but rather breaks it up into smaller, overlapping units dealing with famous leaders, individuals, and major topics of significance.[4]
- ^ Nienhauser (2011), pp. 463–464.
- ^ Hardy (1999), p. xiii.
- ^ Hardy (1999), pp. xiii, 3.
- ^ Durrant (1986), p. 689.