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The Grand Scribe's Records, Volume XI
Part of the extraordinary multi-volume portrait of ancient China written by a court official of the Han Dynasty.
The Grand Scribe's Records, Volume XI presents the final nine memoirs of Ssu-ma Ch'ien's history, continuing the series of collective biographies with seven more prosopographies on the ruthless officials, the wandering gallants, the artful favorites, those who discern auspicious days, turtle and stalk diviners, and those whose goods increase, punctuated by the final account of Emperor Wu's wars against neighboring peoples and concluded with Ssu-ma Ch'ien's postface containing a history of his family and himself.
Praise for the series:
"[An] indispensable addition to modern sinology." --China Review International
"The English translation has been done meticulously." --Choice
The Grand Scribe's Records, Volume XI presents the final nine memoirs of Ssu-ma Ch'ien's history, continuing the series of collective biographies with seven more prosopographies on the ruthless officials, the wandering gallants, the artful favorites, those who discern auspicious days, turtle and stalk diviners, and those whose goods increase, punctuated by the final account of Emperor Wu's wars against neighboring peoples and concluded with Ssu-ma Ch'ien's postface containing a history of his family and himself.
Praise for the series:
"[An] indispensable addition to modern sinology." --China Review International
"The English translation has been done meticulously." --Choice
443 pages, ebook
Published July 31, 2019
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 20, 2022
This is a scholarly work 2/3rds or more is footnotes and explanations, the short biographies and other bits may be of use to those writing about rulers and empires. I liked the Wandering Gallants section the most, The short bios read more like an RPG character at times than the scholarly treatment used nowadays. It's a short read for the most part, I was a bit slow with this because I dislike reading books on my PC. It's an unindexed e-book, hence the page numbers.
Useful bits:
Page
21 Weights and Measures
25 Ruthless Officials
52 Ta Yuan - life with the Hsuing-nu
72 Wandering Gallants - characters who are outside the law
89 Artful Favorites
96 Witty Courtiers
119 Diviners 1
129 Diviners 2
149 Those Whose G0ods Increase
203 Han Official Titles - an insanely long list of court officials
Useful bits:
Page
21 Weights and Measures
25 Ruthless Officials
52 Ta Yuan - life with the Hsuing-nu
72 Wandering Gallants - characters who are outside the law
89 Artful Favorites
96 Witty Courtiers
119 Diviners 1
129 Diviners 2
149 Those Whose G0ods Increase
203 Han Official Titles - an insanely long list of court officials
Displaying 1 of 1 review