Herodotus and Sima Qian: The First Great Historians of Greece and China - A Brief History with Docume, First Edition

by Thomas Martin

Comparing the writings of Herodotus in ancient Greece with those of Sima Qian in ancient China, Herodotus and Sima The First Great Historians of Greece and China highlights how their efforts helped invent modern notions of history writing and the job of the historian.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, China

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Ed Callahan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The "discipline" or "practice" of writing history has a long, involved, and at times controversial legacy. Martin examines two ancient historians, Herodotus and Sima Qian. While most western readers will have at least a passing familiarity with Herodotus, Sima Qian is more obscure, at least to western audiences. Nevertheless, Martin demonstrates that both of these pioneers in historical writing did much to develop historical writing. It is more than a simple chronology and recounting of past events. Both needed to select, organize, and interpret their source material, or at least present the reader with enough clues so that the reader could engage in meaningful interpretations.

The sources which Martin has chosen provide a compact introduction to the writing styles and foci of both historians. Students will be able to use them as a kind of "laboratory" to explore not only what is presented by how it is is presented.

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent introduction for students and a great teaching aide. It comes with discussion questions and prompts for students to consider so that they can compare and contrast Sima Qian and Herodotus. I would recommend this for premodern/ancient world history classes, as an instructor myself. The passages selected are enjoyable to read and contain classic stories in both the Greek and Chinese traditions.

[Azusena]

I read this for a class and I learned so much about how in ancient Greek and China history was written and how two historians interpreted things the way they wanted. I liked to learn about the process of developing history.

[val]

i’m just salty i had to write an essay on it so might as well log it

[Emily Prada · Rating 4 out of 5]

had to read for class but it was interesting