The Writing of History in China
Raymond Dawson reflects on 2,000 years of historical composition in China, beginning with Ssu-ma Ch’ien.
Our story falls into two parts. It begins with Ssu-ma Ch’ien, the father of Chinese history, and goes on to deal with the labours of innumerable patient and conscientious scholars who came after him during the next two thousand years, following the traditional modes of historical composition which owed so much to his great work. Then comes a sudden change. In the nineteenth century the restless Europeans came in strength to China, forcing the Chinese to quicken their leisurely pace, fluttering their brains with new ideas, and causing a revolution in historical conceptions as in all other realms of the mind.
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