The Grand Scribe's Records, Volume VIII: The Memoirs of Han China, Part I - Hardcover

Ch'ien, Ssu-ma

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0253340276 ISBN 13: 9780253340276

Publisher: Indiana University Press, 1995

Synopsis

This volume is part of the first complete translation (in nine volumes) of the Shih chi (The Grand Scribe’s Records), one of the most important narratives in traditional China. Compiled by Ssu-ma Ch’ien (145-c. 86 B.C.), it draws upon most major early historical works and was the foremost model for style and genre in Chinese history and literature through the eleventh century A. D., and through the early twentieth century for some genres.

Volume 7, The Memoirs of Pre_Han China, translates twenty-eight Lieh-chuan or "memoirs" which depict more than a hundred men and women: sages and scholars, recluses and rhetoricians, persuaders and politicians, commandants and cutthroats of the Ch’in and earlier dynasties. Although the memoirs also begin with what is now often considered myth―an account of the renowned recluses Po Yi and Shu Ch’i―the emphasis in these texts is on the fate of various states and power centers as seen through the biographies of key individuals from the seventh to the third centuries B. C.

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Review

[T]he Grand Scribe's Records volume 8 is a remarkable achievement and an interesting experiment in combining something resembling a traditional Chinese commentarial style with a Western scholarly context. . . . And, as with previous volumes, the intrepid beginner or the careful specialist will find volume 8 to be ahelpful aid to research on the Shiji. Source: China Review International

These volumes are most welcome. . . . The English translation has been done meticulously, with full scholarly apparatus. . . . These volumes are essential library additions. Source: Choice

Edition details

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0253340276
• ISBN 13: 9780253340276
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 200
• Editor: Translated By Tsai-fa Cheng Lu Zongli William H. Nienhauser Jr. And Robert Reynolds With Chiu-ming Chan. Edited By William H. Nienhauser Jr.. Ss