Dubious Facts: The Evidence of Early Chinese Historiography

Acknowledgments

ix Acknowledgments Many hands have stirred the pot of this work over the years it has been in the making. The members of my doctoral committee at the University of Chicago—Donald Harper, Edward Shaughnessy, and Danielle Allen—deserve profound thanks for their incisive remarks, without which the flaws of the work would have been that much greater. But there are others, earlier influences, particularly those at the University of Hawaii, especially Roger Ames and Ron Bontekoe, who helped shape and form the ideas and questions I eventually would bring into some focus here. Sincere gratitude also must be offered to a number of scholars who, in spite of their own onerous workloads, gave me rich, detailed comments on various portions, including Rachel Barney, Philip J. Ivanhoe, Rivi Handler-Spitz, Justin Tiwald, David Schaberg, Michael Loewe, and, most especially, Michael Nylan, who astounded me by reading through completely, and offering detailed comments for, the early stages of the manuscript. I further wish to acknowledge the debt I owe the scholars who attended the workshop I hosted at the University of Oklahoma in March of 2009, with the generous support of a grant from the Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange. Whatever the strength of certain added portions of this manuscript is due to their critique. I am also very grateful for the steady assistance of Nancy Ellegate and Diane Ganeles of SUNY Press in bringing this book to print. Lastly, there are those whose presence in my life and work go beyond any acknowledgment I could ever hope to compose. Amy Olberding, my wife and most supportive critic, has touched every aspect of my work, and, indeed, my life. I could not have written a word of this without her love and support. Adelein, our daughter, daily brings a joy I never thought I could have. But there is also one whose figure has accompanied x Dubious Facts me in spirit since I began my intellectual and personal journey into this at times very dark and forbidding forest. It is to him that this work is humbly dedicated. An abbreviated earlier version of Chapter Eight appears in Peter Lorge, ed., Debating Warfare in Chinese History (Leiden: Brill, 2012). ...