Shiji

Shiji, early history of China written about 85 bce by Sima Qian. A two-volume English translation, Records of the Grand Historian of China, was published in 1961. A masterpiece that took 18 years to produce, the Shiji deals with major events and personalities of about 2,000 years (down to the author’s time), comprising 130 chapters and totaling more than 520,000 words. The Shiji not only was the first general history of its kind attempted in...