ABSTRACT
The Records of the Historian (Shi ji [Shih chi]) is the most important historiographic work in the Chinese tradition, which has always placed a great deal of value on such writing. But the influence of this text is not merely historiographic: it is profoundly literary and broadly cultural as well. The Records is arguably the best-known and most revered prose work written in classical Chinese, an assessment that is modern as well as traditional. It is also the primary text defining our understanding of classical and early imperial China. Moreover, its author, Sima Qian ([Ssu-ma Ch’ien] 1459–90? b.c.e.), is a major cultural hero, not only because of his authorship of the Records, but also because of the personal strength that he displayed in bringing this text to completion. Sima Qian, in both his life and work, is central to the Chinese definition of heroism. Quite simply, the Records is the magnum opus of history and prose literature in China. While a number of texts in the early Western tradition have roles that parallel those of the Records, e.g., the Old Testament, and works of Herodotus, Plutarch, and Tacitus, there is none that is as inclusive or as definitive.
