SOURCE: Nienhauser, William H, Jr. “A Reexamination of ‘The Biographies of the Reasonable Officials’ in the Records of the Grand Historian.” Early China 16 (1991): 209-33.

In the following essay, Nienhauser examines problems with The Biographies of the Reasonable Officials section of the Shih chi and contends they can be resolved without concluding that the work is a forgery.

Introduction

That a very short piece written over two millennia ago would serve as the subject for an extended academic discourse may puzzle some.¹ That the same work could be considered at best mediocre by any contemporary literary or historical standards may add to the consternation. Yet the nature and origins of the “Hsün-li lieh-chuan” (The Biographies of the Reasonable Officials; hereafter “The Reasonable Officials”) are suggestive to our overall assessment of the putative author, Ssu-ma Ch'ien (145-c. 85 b.c.), and his master narrative, the Shih chi (Records of the...