The Grand Scribe’s Records, vol. 8: The Memoirs of Han China, pt 1 (review)

This volume appears as part of a series aimed at producing a complete translation of Sima Qian’s 司馬遷 (b. 145 b.c.e.) foundational history, known in Chinese as the Shiji 史記 or Taishigong shu 太史公書 (Grand scribe’s records). So far, six volumes of the series have been published. Volume 1 (1995) and volume 2 (2002) completely translate the “basic annals” 本紀, the part of the history that chronicles the reigns of kings and emperors from legendary times down to the first century b.c.e. Since the translation is being published out of order, the “tables” 表 and difficult “treatises” 書 (Shiji chapters 13–30) have not yet appeared. Volume 6 (2006)¹ broaches the “hereditary household” 世家 section, which (in a style similar to that of the basic annals) chronicles events relating to specific feudal states and lords, all at least notionally under the authority of the central ruling house. Volume 7 (1995), the present volume (2008), and volume 9 (2010) give the first fifty-two of seventy total “memoirs” 列傳 (also translated as “arrayed traditions”). These memoirs, in Sima Qian’s own words, narrate the lives of those who “assisted rightness, were unconventional and exceptional . . . and established their merit and reputation throughout the realm” 扶義俶儻 . . . 立功名於天下.²

The present volume translates memoirs twenty-nine through forty-four (chapters 89–104 of the work overall). Since this section of the history is roughly chronological, the memoirs translated here include events from the fall of the Qin 秦 dynasty (221–206 b.c.e.) through the founding of the Han 漢 dynasty (206 b.c.e.–220 c.e.) and (in the case of the last few chapters) down to the historian’s own day. The memoirs section is centered on individuals: it is not intended to provide complete coverage of major events but rather to present these events through the prism of the subjects’ lives. Sima Qian’s exact selection principles are open to debate, but overall the section tends to include figures who played a defining role in shaping the events of their day.

All the chapters translated in this volume, together with those in volume 2, also appear in Burton Watson’s Records of the Grand Historian: Han Dynasty I.³ Watson’s translation provides an interesting contrast to the present work. Watson’s aim was never to translate Sima Qian’s history in its entirety, but rather to rearrange it in such a way as to give a complete portrait of a particular time period. Watson’s prose is highly readable and reflects the artful style of the original. On the other hand, his translations are only lightly annotated. The prose style of the Nienhauser et al. volumes varies widely, depending on the individual translators, but is generally not as elegant as Watson’s. All the chapters, however, are so thickly annotated that the text-to-footnote ratio on any given page is roughly one to one. Despite the intensive meetings and discussions described in the acknowledgments, the work sometimes reads more like a conference volume than a unified project. There is a basic consistency in the translation of terms, but there are marked differences in style and quality between chapters. The number of errors, remarked on by previous reviewers,⁴ continues to be an issue in some (but not all) of the chapters. Contributors range from graduate students to distinguished senior scholars. A notable feature of this volume is the participation of Hans van Ess and his students; the project benefits from their considerable expertise.

As with previous volumes, each translated chapter identifies the translator and conveniently specifies interlinearly the page number of the translated material in the Zhonghua shuju edition of the Shiji. Each chapter ends...