Pan Ku (32-92) was a Chinese historian and man of letters. His name is mainly associated with the Han-shu, the standard history of the Western Han period.

At the beginning of the Eastern Han dynasty (25-100) there existed no full historical account of the preceding century, as the Shih-chi, which had been compiled by Ssu-ma Ch'ien, ended its record at about 90 B.C. Pan Piao (died A.D. 54), father of Pan Ku attempted to repair this deficiency by continuing the Shih-chi's account to cover those years.

While trying to improve and complete his father's work, Pan Ku was imprisoned on a charge of falsification of the record, but he was later released at the personal order of the Emperor and ordered to finish his work. However, by the time of his death in 92 Pan had not been able to do so; his sister, Pan Chao, was ordered...