The Grand Scribe's Records, Volume V.1: The Hereditary Houses of Pre-Han China, Part I

With Part I of the two-part fifth volume of Ssu-ma Ch'ien's Shi chi (The Grand Scribe's Records), we enter the world of the shih chia or "hereditary houses." These ten chapters trace the history of China's first states, from their establishment in the 11th century B.C. until their incorporation in the first empire under the Ch'in in 221 B.C. Combining myth, anecdote, chronicle, and biography based on early written and oral sources, many no longer extant, the narratives make for compelling reading, as dramatic and readable as any in this grand history.

Ssu-ma Ch'ien (145-ca. 86 B.C.) was a major official in the Western Han dynasty. China's greatest historian, he overcame tragedy to complete this work, compiling the history of his culture from its beginnings through the end of the second century B.C.

William H. Nienhauser, Jr. is Halls-Bascom Professor of Classical Chinese Literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His books include The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature (two volumes, IUP, 1985; 1998) and (as translator) Chinese Literature, Ancient and Classical by André Levy (IUP, 2000). He was a founding editor of the journal Chinese Literature, Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR).

Acknowledgments

Introduction (William H. Nienhauser, Jr.)

On Using this Book

A Note on Terms

Weights and Measures (Lu Zongli)

List of Abbreviations

Hereditary House 1 (Zhi Chen and William H. Nienhauser, Jr., translators)

Hereditary House 2 (Bruce Knickerbocker, translator)

Hereditary House 3 (Weiguo Cao, translator)

Hereditary House 4 (Hongyu Huang, translator)

Hereditary House 5 (William H. Nienhauser, Jr., translator)

Hereditary House 6 (Wang Jing, translator)

Hereditary House 7 (Scott Cook, translator)

Hereditary House 8 (Zhenjun Zhang, translator)

Hereditary House 9 (Zhao Hua and William H. Nienhauser, Jr., translators)

Hereditary House 10 (Weiguo Cao, translator)

Frequently Mentioned Commentators

Biographical Sketches of Shih chi Commentators (Juri Kroll)

Selected Recent Studies of the Shih chi

Index

Maps