Grand Scribe's Records

Ssu-ma Ch’ien was a major official in the Western Han dynasty (145–ca. 86 BC) and overcame tragedy to complete these fundamental volumes. William H. Nienhauser, Jr., is Professor of Chinese Language and literature at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In 1979 he helped found the journal Chinese Literature, Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR). He was the Editor-in-Chief and Compiler of The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature, a monumental and indispensable reference work published in 1986. He has authored numerous influential scholarly papers and articles.Tsia-fa Cheng, Professor of Chinese at the University of Wisconsin and a Research Fellow at Academia Sinica, is a graduate of National Taiwan University and the University of Wisconsin and a noted specialist in Chinese historical linguistics.

• DedicationAcknowledgementsIntroductionOn Using This BookA Note on ChronologyWeights and MeasuresList of AbbreviationsThe Five Emperors, Basic Annals OneThe Hsia, Basic Annals TwoThe Yin, Basic Annals ThreeThe Chou, Basic Annals FourThe Ch’in, Basic Annals FiveThe First Emperor of Ch’in, Basic Annals SixHsiang Yu, Basic Annals SevenBibliographyIndexMaps

[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.