Literature & Ideas
Landmark
Sima Qian
145 – 86 BC
Wrote the Records of the Grand Historian, the model for two thousand years of Chinese history writing
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Why they are here
The Han dynasty historian whose Records of the Grand Historian told China's story from its legendary beginnings to his own day and set the form for official histories that followed.
Sima Qian succeeded his father as grand historian at the Han court. After defending a disgraced general he was sentenced to castration, and chose to endure it rather than die so that he could finish his history.
The Records combine annals of rulers with biographies of officials, generals, merchants, assassins and others, written with a vividness that made the work literature as well as history. Every later dynasty's official history followed its structure.
The Records combine annals of rulers with biographies of officials, generals, merchants, assassins and others, written with a vividness that made the work literature as well as history. Every later dynasty's official history followed its structure.
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