Thomas R. Martin - Herodotus and Sima Qian: The First Great Historians of Greece and China: A Brief History with Documents

Herodotus and Sima Qian

The First Great Historians of Greece and China

A Brief History with Documents

Thomas R. Martin

THE BEDFORD SERIES IN HISTORY AND CULTURE

A Brief History with Documents

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THE BEDFORD SERIES IN HISTORY AND CULTURE

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David W. Blight, Yale University

Bonnie G. Smith, Rutgers University

Natalie Zemon Davis, Princeton University

Ernest R. May, Harvard University

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THE BEDFORD SERIES IN HISTORY AND CULTURE

A Brief History with Documents

• Thomas R. Martin
• College of the Holy Cross

For Bedford/St. Martins

Publisher for History: Mary V. Dougherty

Director of Development for History: Jane Knetzger

Senior Editor: Heidi L. Hood

Developmental Editor: Debra Michals

Editorial Assistant: Jennifer Jovin

Production Assistant: Samuel Jones

Executive Marketing Manager: Jenna Bookin Barry

Project Management: Books By Design, Inc.

Index: Books By Design, Inc.

Text Design: Claire Seng-Niemoeller

Cover Design: Richard DiTomassi

Cover Art: Herodotus: Marble bust of Herodotos. Roman, Imperial, 2nd century AD. Marble, Island? H. 18 in. (47.6 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of George F. Baker, 1891 (91.8). Image The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image Source: Art Resource, NY; (right) Sima Qian.

Composition: TexTech International

President: Joan E. Feinberg

Editorial Director: Denise B. Wydra

Editor in Chief: Karen S. Henry

Director of Marketing: Karen R. Soeltz

Director of Editing, Design, and Production: Marcia Cohen

Assistant Director of Editing, Design, and Production: Elise S. Kaiser

Manager, Publishing Services: Emily Berleth

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009928648

Copyright 2010 by Bedford/St. Martins

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except as may be expressly permitted by the applicable copyright statutes or in writing by the Publisher.

For information, write: Bedford/St. Martins, 75 Arlington Street, Boston, MA 02116

ISBN: 978-1-319-24287-9 (ePub)

The Bedford Series in History and Culture is designed so that readers can study the past as historians do.

The historians first task is finding the evidence. Documents, letters, memoirs, interviews, pictures, movies, novels, or poems can provide facts and clues. Then the historian questions and compares the sources. There is more to do than in a courtroom, for hearsay evidence is welcome, and the historian is usually looking for answers beyond act and motive. Different views of an event may be as important as a single verdict. How a story is told may yield as much information as what it says.

Along the way the historian seeks help from other historians and perhaps from specialists in other disciplines. Finally, it is time to write, to decide on an interpretation and how to arrange the evidence for readers.

Each book in this series contains an important historical document or group of documents, each document a witness from the past and open to interpretation in different ways. The documents are combined with some element of historical narrativean introduction or a biographical essay, for examplethat provides students with an analysis of the primary source material and important background information about the world in which it was produced.

Each book in the series focuses on a specific topic within a specific historical period. Each provides a basis for lively thought and discussion about several aspects of the topic and the historians role. Each is short enough (and inexpensive enough) to be a reasonable one-week assignment in a college course. Whether as classroom or personal reading, each book in the series provides firsthand experience of the challengeand funof discovering, recreating, and interpreting the past.

Lynn Hunt

David W. Blight

Bonnie G. Smith

Natalie Zemon Davis

Ernest R. May

When and where did history writing begin, in a form and with a complexity that historians today would credit as history worthy of the name? Could it have been as long ago as ancient Greece in the fifth century BCE with the writings of Herodotus (ca. 484ca. 414 BCE) and early imperial China in the second century BCE with the writings of Sima Qian (ca. 145ca. 86 BCE)? Is it likely to have sprung up independently in both places? And if it did, what were the most important similarities and differences in these independent acts of writing history?

This book supplies evidence that helps poseand at least partially answerthese questions in a useful way. To do so, it compares representative excerpts from The Histories of Herodotus and The Records of the Historian of Sima Qian. This volume makes the case that these historians did in fact do history writing at a level that earns them the titles the first great historian of Greece and the first great historian of China. Comparing their work allows us to see more clearly what is distinctive about each one and also what is similar. It enables us to determine the common features in the ways these writers analyzed the past and the different methods each selected for indicating the significance of historic events and the actions and motivations of individuals. Finally, their writings reveal something of the civilizations in which they lived.

The books that Herodotus and Sima Qian wrote changed how their respective civilizations approached the writing of history. A comparison of their works reveals that they both viewed knowledge of the past as much more complicated than events arranged in chronological order. Above all, they recognized that no matter how objective a historian might strive to be, information about the past always needs interpretation to be understood. Furthermore, both evidently believed that making judgments in their written works about what people did in the past could provide an important guide to how people should live in the present.

This book begins with an introduction that outlines the circumstances under which these historians did their groundbreaking work. It explores why their books were so important and describes how their histories compare in scope, organization, and purpose. It stresses the ways in which these historians expected their audiences to be actively engaged in making connections between different parts of their sprawling histories. The introductory essay also explores how Herodotus and Sima Qian combined an objective approach to evidence with a subjective interpretation of events and the motivations of individuals. In addition, the introduction explains how both historians attributed a moral value to the study of history.