Monographs in Tang Official Historiography: Perspectives from the Technical Treatises of the History of Sui (Sui Shu)

Editors:
Daniel Patrick Morgan, Damien Chaussende

Publication date:
09/09/2019

Publisher:
Springer International Publishing

Abstract:

This book examines the role of medieval authors in writing the history of ancient science. It features essays that explore the content, structure, and ideas behind technical writings on medieval Chinese state history. In particular, it looks at the Ten Treatises of the current History of Sui 隋書, which provide insights into the writing on the history of such fields as astronomy, astrology, omenology, economics, law, geography, metrology, and library science. Three treatises are known to have been written by Li Chunfeng 李淳風, one of the most important mathematicians, astronomers, and astrologers in Chinese history.

The book not only opens a new window on the figure of Li Chunfeng by exploring what his writings as a historian of science tell us about him as a scientist and vice versa, it also discusses how and on what basis the individual treatises were written.

The essays address such themes as (1) the recycling of sources and the question of reliability and objectivity in premodern history-writing; (2) the tug of war between conservatism and innovation; (3) the imposition of the author’s voice, worldview, and personal and professional history in writing a history of a field of technical expertise in a state history; (4) the degree to which modern historians are compelled to speak to their own milieu and ideological beliefs.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1: Prologue (Daniel P. Morgan and Damien Chaussende)


PART I: THE WORK OF LI CHUNFENG


Chapter 2: The Life and Intellectual Work of Li Chunfeng (602–670) (Howard L. Goodman)


Chapter 3: Numbers with Histories: Li Chunfeng on Harmonics and Astronomy (Daniel P. Morgan and Howard L. Goodman)


Chapter 4: Scholarship and Politics in Seventh Century China from the Viewpoint of Li Chunfeng’s Writing on Histories (Zhu Yiwen)


Chapter 5: The Compilation of the Astronomical Portion of the ‘Treatise on Harmono-Metrology and Mathematical Astronomy’ and its Impact (Li Liang)

Chapter 6: Heavenly Patterns (Daniel P. Morgan)


Chapter 7: The ‘Treatise on the Wuxing’ (Wuxing zhi) (Michael Nylan)


PART II: THE ANONYMOUS TREATISES


Chapter 8: The Treatise on Economics and Its Influences (Béatrice L'Haridon)


Chapter 9: The Treatise on Law (Frédéric Constant)


Chapter 10: Intertextuality, Customs and Regionalism in the ‘Geographical Treatise’ (Alexis Lycas)


Chapter 11: The Art of Producing a Catalogue: the Meaning of ‘Compilations’ for the Organisation of Ancient Knowledge in Tang Times (Pablo Ariel Blitstein)


Chapter 12: Epilogue: Treatises According to Tang Historian Liu Zhiji (Damien Chaussende)

Reading Sima Qian from Han to Song: The Father of History in Pre-Modern China

Author: 
Esther S. Klein

Publication Date: 
November 2018

Publisher:
Brill

Abstract:

In Father of Chinese History, Esther Klein explores the life and work of the great Han dynasty historian Sima Qian as seen by readers from the Han to the Song dynasties. Today Sima Qian is viewed as both a tragic hero and a literary genius. Premodern responses to him were more equivocal: the complex personal emotions he expressed prompted readers to worry about whether his work as a historian was morally or politically acceptable. Klein demonstrates how controversies over the value and meaning of Sima Qian’s work are intimately bound up with larger questions: How should history be written? What role does individual experience and self-expression play within that process? By what standards can the historian’s choices be judged?

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Structure of the Book
Historians, Lineages, and Confucian Scholars: Good Problems in Translation

Part 1: Contextualization

1 A Record of Doubts and Difficulties
Overview
Sources and Attribution
Who is the Honorable Senior Historian?
Autobiography and Authenticity
Chu Shaosun: A Third Author?
Extreme Textual Damage and Loss
A Conclusion Leading Onward
2 Sima Qian’s Place in the Textual World
Aspects of Self-Description
Early Views of the Shiji
The New Historical Tradition
Sima Qian in the Realm of Literary Prose

[Dissertation] Building Blocks of Chinese Historiography: A Narratological Analysis of "Shi ji"

Author:
Lei YANG 楊蕾

School:
University of Pennsylvania

Advisor: 
Paul R. Goldin

Year:
2016

Abstract:

In Shi ji 史記 studies, scholars from both the East and West have predominantly taken one particular approach: the psychological reading of its author, Sima Qian 司馬遷. Since the author suffered penal castration when he was writing the Shi ji, this approach has been summarized as “the theory of conveying one’s frustration.” Many scholars, modern and pre-modern alike, have inferred the author’s feelings and emotions from his biographical experiences and have interpreted the text accordingly. This narrow interpretation constrains our understanding by exclusively focusing on the author’s personal pains and purposes. Such analysis thus commits the intentional fallacy, which mistakenly equates the author with the text, unjustifiably simplifying the complicated interpretive process. 

I explore the features of the text itself, shifting the focus of research from the author’s intention to the effects produced by its narrative devices, which have determinative influence over the interpretive process but have long been overlooked. I explore the role of narrative as a medium in historical works, applying theories of narratology from the French Structualist Gérard Genette to analyze narratives in the Shi ji. By setting the text into this framework, I systematically examine the narrative sequences, such as anticipation and flashback, narrative duration and mood, and characterization. My investigation shows that these narrative devices produce literary effects, distinguishing Shi ji from both earlier and later histories, such as the Zuo zhuan 左傳 and Han shu 漢書. Shi ji presents a highly complicated past by manipulating interrelations among historical events, regulating information, and emphasizing changes and their effects. It pays most attention to how the historical events happened, more than what happened and why, a significant issue has not been discussed in a context of Chinese historiography. My narratological approach provides an alternative perspective and explores new territory in Shi ji studies.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Chapter 1: Methodology
Chapter 2: Shi Ji: An Encyclopedia
Chapter 3: Temporal Order and Causality
Chapter 4: Duration and Mood
Chapter 5: Characterization
Conclusion

The Commentarial Transformation of the Spring and Autumn

Author:
Newell Ann Van Auken

Publication Date:
December 2016

Publisher:
SUNY Press

Abstract:

The Spring and Autumn is among the earliest surviving Chinese historical records, covering the period 722–479 BCE. It is a curious text: the canonical interpretation claims that it was composed by Confucius and embodies his moral judgments, but this view appears to be contradicted by the brief and dispassionate records themselves. Newell Ann Van Auken addresses this puzzling discrepancy through an examination of early interpretations of the Spring and Autumn, and uncovers a crucial missing link in two sets of commentarial remarks embedded in the Zuoû Tradition. These embedded commentaries do not seek moral judgments in the Spring and Autumn, but instead interpret its records as produced by a historiographical tradition that was governed by rules related to hierarchy and ritual practice. Van Auken’s exploration of the Zuo Tradition and other early commentaries sheds light on the transformation of the Spring and Autumn from a simple, non-narrative historical record into a Confucian classic.

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments
Scholarly Conventions

Introduction
 Text, Commentary, and Authority
 The Spring and Autumn: An Overview and Brief Reception History
 The Zuô Tradition and Spring and Autumn Commentary
 Overview of the Book

1. Orthodoxy and Transformation: Two Categories of Commentary

2. The Ritual Filter and the Centrality of Lǔ

3. Hierarchy, Criticism, and Commendation: Recognizing Merit and Assigning Fault

4. Two Ways of Teaching the Spring and Autumn: The Sources of the Direct Commentaries

5. Other Approaches to Commentary in the Zuô Tradition: The Gentleman and Confucius

6. Incomplete Correspondences and the Likelihood of Mediated Contact: The Relation of the Direct Commentaries to Gōngyáng and Gǔliáng

7. From Recording Rules to Written Text: Conceptual Antecedents to Gōngyáng and Gǔliáng in the Direct Commentaries

Epilogue

Appendix
Summaries and Topical Lists of the Direct Commentary Passages
Summaries: Specific Remarks
Summaries: General Remarks
Topical Lists of Direct Commentary Passages

Notes
Bibliography
Index

The Ancient State of Puyŏ in Northeast Asia: Archaeology and Historical Memory

Author:
Mark E. Byington

Publication Date:
October 2016

Publisher:
Harvard University Asia Center

Abstract:

Mark E. Byington explores the formation, history, and legacy of the ancient state of Puyŏ 扶餘, which existed in central Manchuria from the third century BCE until the late fifth century CE. As the earliest archaeologically attested state to arise in northeastern Asia, Puyŏ occupies an important place in the history of that region. Nevertheless, until now its history and culture have been rarely touched upon in scholarly works in any language. The present volume, utilizing recently discovered archaeological materials from Northeast China as well as a wide variety of historical records, explores the social and political processes associated with the formation and development of the Puyŏ state, and discusses how the historical legacy of Puyŏ—its historical memory—contributed to modes of statecraft of later northeast Asian states and provided a basis for a developing historiographical tradition on the Korean peninsula. Byington focuses on two major aspects of state formation: as a social process leading to the formation of a state-level polity called Puyŏ, and as a political process associated with a variety of devices intended to assure the stability and perpetuation of the inegalitarian social structures of several early states in the Korea–Manchuria region.

Table of Contents:

Puyo in studies of early northeast Asia

The archaeology of Puyo : part one: Bronze Age antecedents

The archaeology of Puyo : part two: formation of the Puyo state

History of the Puyo state

Society and territory of the Puyo state

Post-conquest Puyo survivals

Two phases of state formation

Appendix: Puyo in studies of historical geography

The History and Archaeology of the Koguryo Kingdom

Editor:
Mark E Byington

Publication Date:
July 2016

Publisher:
University of Hawai'i Press

Abstract:

This volume contains twelve studies on the history and archaeology of the Koguryo kingdom, which existed from the first century B.C. to 668, its territories encompassing the northern part of the Korean peninsula and much of southern Manchuria. The studies presented here were written by specialists in various disciplines, covering issues in Koguryo’s political history, its archaeological remains, its mortuary system and tomb art, and its place in historiography.

Table of Contents:

Introduction. Mark E. Byington

Part One: History
1 Koguryo State Formation and Han’s Xuantu Commandery. Mark E. Byington
2 East Asia in the Fourth Century and Changes in Koguryo’s Foreign Policies. Yeo HoKyu
3 Koguryo and Its Political and Cultural Impact on East Asia. Lee Sungsi

Part Two: Archaeology
4 Recent Archaeological Discoveries and Studies on Koguryo in Liaoning Province. Li Xinquan 
5 The Discovery and Study of Koguryo Remains in Jilin Province. Jin Xudong
6 North Korean Research on Koguryo Remains: Status and Results. Baek Jong-oh 
7 Findings from Research on Koguryo Remains in South Korea. Choi Jongtaik

Part Three: Tombs and Funerary Art
8 Historical Changes in Koguryo Tombs. Azuma Ushio
9 Koguryo Tomb Painting: Definition, Sources, Comparisons, Context. Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt
10 A Reassessment of the Emergence of the Images of the Four Animals of the Cardinal Directions in Koguryo Funerary Art. Ariane Perrin

Part Four: Historiography
11 On Parhae as Successor to Koguryo. Song Ki-ho
12 The Perception of Koguryo in Silla and Koryo. Noh Taedon

[Dissertation] Ethnographic Identities and the Politics of Legitimacy in Late Roman and Early Medieval Chinese Historiography

Author:
Ford, Randolph

Publication Year:
2016

School: 
New York University 

Advisors:
Levene, David S.; Tseng, Lillian

Abstract: 

The dissertation is a comparative study in the ethnographic traditions of Greco-Roman and Chinese civilizations from their beginnings up through the early medieval period. In concentrating on the ways in which the Wars of Procopius of Caesarea and the Jinshu [晉書] of the Tang Bureau of Historiography engaged with their classical ethnographic precedents, the dissertation examines the tension inherent in efforts to emulate and restore the ideals of the past while acknowledging and coming to terms with the realities of the present, a tension that characterized the cultural and political imaginations of literary elites of the Roman and Chinese Empires. 

This comparative approach throws into stark relief what appears as an all the more significant absence of ethnic identity as a criterion in the discourse of political legitimacy in the Wars of Procopius. It is argued here that this aspect of late antique political thought has its roots in the earlier Greco-Roman historiographical and political traditions, and that it allowed for the conceptual possibility of legitimate political centers of power within the former imperium that were not required to identify themselves ethnically with the Roman state. The officials of the Tang Bureau of Historiography, on the other hand, despite the fact that they worked under a ruling dynasty that itself had strong ties to the steppe and inner-Asian traditions, nevertheless re-drew a stark line of distinction between a Chinese center and a barbarian periphery. The dissertation thus provides an ideological explanation for the marked contrast in strategies of political identification in the late-Roman and early Tang periods.

Views from Within, Views from Beyond: Approaches to the Shiji as an Early Work of Historiography

Editors:
Hans van Ess, Olga Lomová, and Dorothee Schaab-Hanke

Publication Year:
2015

Publisher:
Wiesbaden : Harrassowitz Verlag

Abstract:

This is not simply one more out of the many works that have already been written on the Shiji, the “Records of the Scribes” or perhaps “Historical Records,” authored by the two Western Han historians Sima Tan (?-110 BCE) and his son Sima Qian (c. 145-c. 86 BCE). It is rather the joint effort of about a dozen established scholars of the field to approach this early masterpiece of both historiography and literature with some refreshingly new questions and working hypotheses.

The authors of this volume originally gathered at a conference entitled “Shiji and Beyond,” organized by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation International Sinological Center in Prague in December 2011. This was the third conference on the Shiji in a series started by Professor Lee Chi-hsiang at Fo Guang University in Taiwan in 2008. Its organizers have tried to bring together scholars who have been actively promoting Shiji studies in Taiwan, the US, Canada, and several European countries.

The majority of the papers presented at the Prague workshop are collected here. They are now divided into two sections entitled “Views from Within” and “Views from Beyond.” Such an arrangement seems plausible to the editors, because almost all of the papers either have their main focus on a reading of the text itself or look at its later reception.

Table of Contents:

Introduction 1

I Views from Within

Bernhard Fuehrer
Sima Qian as a Reader of Master Kong’s Utterances ……………………………… 9

Juri L. Kroll
Toward a Study of the Concept of Linear Time in the Shiji ……………………… 31

Chi-hsiang Lee 李紀祥
Sima Qian’s View of Zhou History in Shiji《史記》中司馬遷的「周史觀」………… 41

Hans van Ess
The Friends of Sima Tan and Sima Qian ………………………………… 67

Wai-yee Li
Historical Understanding in “The Account of the Xiongnu” in the Shiji ……… 79

Giulia Baccini
The Shiji chapter “Guji Liezhuan” (Traditions of Witty Remonstrants):
A Source to Look for Rhetorical Strategies in Early China ………………… 103

Michael Nylan
Assets Accumulating:
Sima Qian’s Perspective on Moneymaking, Virtue, and History ………………… 131

II Views from Beyond

Béatrice L’Haridon
The Merchants in Shiji: An Interpretation in the Light of Later Debates …171

Dorothee Schaab-Hanke
Inheritor of a Subversive Mind?
Approaching Yang Yun from his Letter to Sun Huizong …………………… 193

Stephen Durrant
Ban Biao, Ban Gu, Their Five Shiji Sources,
and the Curious Case of Chu Han chunqiu ……………………………………… 217 

William H. Nienhauser, Jr.
Takigawa Kametarō and His Contributions to the Study of the Shiji …… 243

Christoph Harbsmeier
Living up to Contrasting Portraiture: Plutarch on Alexander the Great
and Sima Qian on the First Qin Emperor ………………………………………… 263 

史記秦漢史の研究

Author:
藤田勝久

Publication Year:
2015

Publisher:
汲古書院

Table of Contents:
はしがき
序　章　簡牘・帛書の発見と『史記』研究
一　『史記』注釈と出典研究
二　『史記』の素材と出土資料
〔『史記』の年代学と出土資料／記事資料と出土書籍／秦漢資料と『史記』の取材〕
三　漢太史令と出土資料〔黄老思想、天文の資料／史に関する規定〕
四　『史記』成立の諸問題〔古伝説・説話と公羊学／『史記』『漢書』の編集〕

第一章　司馬遷と《太史公書》の成立
一　司馬談の遺言をめぐって　　　　　　　　　
二　漢太史令の役割
三　武帝の時代―封禅と太初改暦　　　　　　 
四　《太史公書》の成立

第二章　司馬遷の旅行と取材
一　二十歳の旅行について―司馬遷の生年　　 
二　司馬遷の旅行と見聞
三　帝王の遺跡と諸民族―年代観と世界観　　 
四　屈原・賈誼の人物評価

附篇一　『史記』陳渉世家のフィールド調査
一　『史記』陳渉世家の歴史叙述　　
二　陳楚故城と楚王墓、楚墓　　
三　陳渉の郷里・陽城古城

附篇二　『史記』の編集と漢代伝承
一　『史記』にみえる漢代の伝承　　
二　「鴻門の会」の伝承―樊噲列伝　　
三　『楚漢春秋』と漢代伝承―項羽本紀

第三章　『史記』秦始皇本紀の歴史叙述
第一節　始皇帝と秦帝国の興亡
一　始皇帝の統一をめぐって―本紀（一）　　 
二　始皇帝の統一事業と巡行―本紀（二）
三　『史記』秦始皇本紀の歴史観―本紀（三）
第二節　始皇帝と諸公子について
一　始皇帝の夫人と扶蘇―婚姻と外交政策　　 
二　二世皇帝と諸公子の出自について
三　秦帝国の政権構造と諸国

第四章　『史記』と里耶秦簡―秦帝国の地方社会
一　洞庭郡の里耶古城をめぐる情勢　　
二　里耶秦簡にみえる郡県制　　 
三　秦帝国の滅亡と地方社会

第五章　『史記』秦漢史像の復元―陳渉、劉邦、項羽のエピソード
一　『史記』陳渉世家の地方社会　　
二 『史記』高祖本紀の地方社会　　
三 『史記』項羽本紀の社会情勢

第六章　『史記』項羽本紀と秦楚之際月表―楚と漢の歴史観
一　『史記』項羽本紀の構成　　　　　　　　　
二　『史記』秦楚之際月表の構成　
三　戦国・秦漢における諸国の暦法　　　　　　
四　『史記』にみえる楚・漢の評価

第七章　項羽と劉邦の体制―秦と楚の社会システム
一　秦代の地方統治と情報伝達　　　
二　秦の滅亡と項羽の体制　　　　　
三　楚漢戦争期の体制と戦略

第八章　『史記』呂后本紀の歴史観
一　『史記』にみえる呂后の人物像　
二　『史記』呂后本紀の素材と編集　
三　『史記』呂后本紀の歴史観

第九章　『史記』漢代諸表と諸侯王
第一節　張家山漢簡「秩律」と漢王朝の領域
一　「秩律」にみえる県の所属　　　　　　　　　
二　「秩律」にみえる漢王朝と諸侯王国
〔代国をめぐって／長沙国と武陵郡をめぐって／楚国をめぐって／梁国と淮陽国をめぐって〕
三　張家山漢簡「秩律」と楚国の領域

　第二節　漢代の郡国制と諸侯王―徐州楚王陵の印章・封泥
一　漢代初期の王朝と諸侯王　　　　　　　　　
二　淮陰侯韓信の失脚と諸侯王
三　漢代の郡国制と東方社会―楚国の官制と領域

終　章　『史記』の歴史叙述と秦漢史
一　『史記』の取材と編集　　　　　　　　　　
二　『史記』の構造と歴史観　
三　秦漢時代の国家と地域社会〔『史記』秦漢史の歴史叙述／古代専制国家の概念／秦漢時代の県社会〕

あとがき・初出一覧・『史記』篇目、『漢書』篇目・索引（文献と出土資料、事項）

Beyond the First Emperor's Mausoleum: New Perspectives on Qin Art

Editor:
Liu Yang

Publisher:

University of Washington Press

Publication Year:

2015

Abstract:

Our imaginations are sparked by the compelling findings unearthed at Lintong near Xi'an, capital of modern-day Shaanxi Province. There the grand mausoleum and its thousands of guardian Terracotta Warriors and horses stand as testimony to the extraordinary legacy of China's First Emperor, Qin Shihuang. Equally significant in shedding light on the days of the Qin state and its evolution from a tribe of the western frontier to a dominant superpower are numerous recent archaeological finds from the region of present-day Gansu and Shaanxi provinces. In Beyond the First Emperor's Mausoleum: New Perspectives on Qin Art, twelve leading scholars of early Chinese art and culture from China, Europe, and the United States share their perspectives on recent archaeological discoveries related to Qin dynasty culture and history.

Table of Contents:

Foreword / Kaywin Feldman --

Introduction / Liu Yang --

Defining Qin artistic traditions: heritage, borrowing, and innovation / Alain Thote 

Artistic naturalism and bureaucratic theory / Martin Powers --

Qin cosmography and the first cosmic capital, Xianyang / David Pankenier --

Afterlife entertainment? The cauldron and bare-torso figures at the First Emperor's tomb / Eugene Wang --

Imagining the tomb of the First Emperor of China / Anthony Barbieri-Low --

The Qin Biannian ji and the beginnings of historical writing in China / Edward L. Shaughnessy --

Cinnabar and mercury industry of Qin and early China / Kuang-Yu Chen --

Qin ritual bronze: impact from the Central Plains and the South / Liu Yang --

Foreign/Eurasian elements in pre-imperial Qin culture: materials, techniques and types / Jenny F. So --

Archaeological finds of the Majiayuan Cemetery and Qin's interaction with Steppe cultures / Wang Hui --

Contributors. Section headings: Inheritance, innovation, and politics in Qin art --

City, burial, and ritual --

Qin history, culture, and art: new light shed by archaeological finds --

Qin's interaction with other cultures.

浙江大『左伝』真偽考

Authors: 浅野裕一 、小沢賢二

Publication Year: 2013


Publisher: 汲古書院


Table of Contents: 

第一章　浙江大学蔵戦国楚簡『左伝』の釈文（浅野裕一）

第二章　『左伝』の研究史（浅野裕一）

第三章　偽簡説の検討（浅野裕一）

第四章　『春秋』及び『左伝』の成立事情（浅野裕一）

第五章　『左伝』の構造的寓意（浅野裕一）

第六章　浙江大楚簡『左伝』発見の意義（浅野裕一）

第七章　伝世本『左伝』の天文暦法データ再検証から見た浙江大『左伝』の有用性（小沢賢二）

第八章　浙江大戦国楚簡『玉勺』の書写年代（小沢賢二）

第九章　中国戦国時代文書文字考（小沢賢二）

[Dissertation] The History of a Historian: Perspectives on the Authorial Roles of Sima Qian 司馬遷

Author:
Esther Sunkyung Klein

Year:
2010

Primary advisor:
Martin Kern

School:
Princeton University

Abstract:

In the first century BCE, Sima Qian compiled the Shiji, a history of China from mythological beginnings to his own day. Soon after, readers of the Shiji began producing both continuations and extensive comments. This dissertation examines the changing ways in which pre-modern Chinese readers understood authorship through an analysis of their perspectives on Sima Qian. I argue that we cannot know the “real” Sima Qian: the tragic authorial figure of Sima Qian is a construction by later readers. I trace the development of this authorial construction from the Han through Song dynasties, examining readers' comments within their historical contexts. The dissertation has three parts. The first outlines Sima Qian's fortunes in the textual world of traditional China, exploring how his authorial role was seen in relation to the Classics and to historical texts (in chapter 1), as well as to literary theory and composition (in chapter 2). Chapter 3 discusses formal aspects of the Shiji and how they were considered an aspect of Sima Qian's creative authorship.

The second part juxtaposes two competing interpretations of the Shiji. Chapters 4 and 5 analyze how Sima Qian's personal tragedy was thought to relate to his work on the Shiji. Initially such motivations were viewed in a primarily negative light. It was not until the Song that the autobiographical connection came to be valorized. In chapter 6, I consider an alternative position, that the Shiji was a “true record” and how the meaning of that term changed over time. I show how this aspect of Shiji interpretation reflected and influenced traditional Chinese attitudes toward history.

The third part explores textual issues. In chapter 7, I consider three problems related to Shiji authorship that go beyond Sima Qian: the question of Sima Tan, the work of Chu Shaosun, and the idea of a damaged Shiji text. In chapter 8, I discuss issues related to the authenticity of the “Letter in Reply to Ren An,” which is often read as Sima Qian's finest autobiographical statement and a crucial interpretive key to the Shiji.

Dubious Facts: The Evidence of Early Chinese Historiography

作者 Author:
Garret P. S. Olberding

出版社 Publisher:
SUNY

出版年 Publication Year:
2012

簡介 Abstract:

What were the intentions of early China's historians? Modern readers must contend with the tension between the narrators' moralizing commentary and their description of events. Although these historians had notions of evidence, it is not clear to what extent they valued what contemporary scholars would deem "hard" facts. Offering an innovative approach to premodern historical documents, Garret P. S. Olberding argues that the speeches of court advisors reveal subtle strategies of information management in the early monarchic context. Olberding focuses on those addresses concerning military campaigns where evidence would be important in guiding immediate social and political policy. His analysis reveals the sophisticated conventions that governed the imperial advisor's logic and suasion in critical state discussions, which were specifically intended to counter anticipated doubts. Dubious Facts illuminates both the decision-making processes that informed early Chinese military campaigns and the historical records that represent them.

目錄 Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction

2. The Subversive Power of the Historian

3. Politicized Truth and Doubt

4. Interactive Constraints at Court

5. Salient Formal Characteristics of the Addresses

6. Rhetoric in Opposition: Two Zhanguoce 戰國策 Addresses

7. Commitment to the Facts

8. Moral Norms as Facts: Arguing Before the Emperor

9. How Did Ministers Err?

10. A Diversity of Evidence

Notes
Bibliography
Index