Chinese Historiography - History of Chinese Historians

History of Chinese Historians

Recording of Chinese history dates back to the Shang Dynasty, although the oldest surviving histories — those compiled in the Classic of History — seem to date back only to the rise of Zhou at the earliest. The Spring and Autumn Annals, the official chronicle of the State of Lu covering the period from 722 to 481 BC, is among the earliest surviving Chinese historical texts to be arranged as an annal. The compilations of both are traditionally ascribed to Confucius. The Zuo Zhuan, attributed to Zuo Qiuming in the 5th century BC, is the earliest Chinese work of narrative history and covers the period from 722 to 468 BC. The anonymous Zhan Guo Ce was a renowned ancient Chinese historical work compiling sporadic materials on the Warring States between the 3rd and 1st centuries BC.

The first systematic Chinese historical text, the Records of the Grand Historian, was written by Sima Qian and his father. The book covers the period from the time of the Yellow Emperor until the author's own life in a naturalistic and comprehensive manner. Due to this highly-praised and highly-copied work, Sima Qian is often regarded as the father of Chinese historiography. The Twenty-Four Histories it spawned, the official compilations of the histories of those dynasties considered legitimate by the imperial Chinese historians, all copied his format. Typically, the rulers initiating a new dynasty would employ scholars to compile a final history from the annals and records of the previous one.

The Shitong was the first Chinese work about historiography. It was compiled by Liu Zhiji between AD 708 and 710. The book describes the general pattern of the official dynastic histories with regard to structure, method, arrangement, sequence, caption, and commentary back to the Warring States era.

The Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government was a pioneering reference work in Chinese historiography. Emperor Yingzong of Song ordered Sima Guang and other scholars to begin compiling this universal history of China in 1065 and they presented it to his successor Shenzong in 1084. It contains 294 volumes and about 3 million characters and narrates the history of China from 403 BC to the beginning of the Song in AD 959 chronologically. This broke a nearly-thousand-year tradition dating back to Sima Qian of employing annals for imperial reigns but biographies or treatises for other topics. The more consistent style of the Comprehensive Mirror was not followed by later official histories.