Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Why History? The Role of History in Chinese Culture Sima Qian and History 2. Representing the World The Structure of the MDUL Shiji MDNM Reading the Structure A Bamboo World 3. Microcosmic Reading I The Web of History Multiple Narrations 4. Microcosmic Reading II The Significance of Events Assessing Generalizations 5. Shaping the World Judgmental History The MDUL Shiji MDNM as a Hermeneutical Tool Transforming the World 6. Confucian Reading I Guiding Interpretation Chronicling the Sage 7. Confucian Reading II A World of Bronze Contesting the World 8. Understanding the World Fitting the Times The Limits of Rationality Knowing and Being Known Epilogue Notes Glossary Bibliography

Promotional Information

Sima Qian was China's first historian, and his Shiji has been an enormously influential resource to historians, literary scholars, and philosophers. Hardy juxtaposes Qian with the Greek historians, raising important questions about historical "objectivity" and the role of the historian in influencing the present and future.

About the Author

Grant Hardy is assistant professor of history at the University of North Carolina, Asheville.

Reviews

Hardys work should become the first book consulted by scholars of the Western tradition who want to know something about Sima Qian and how he is to be positioned with regard to their own historiographic tradition.