"TWENTY-FOUR STANDARD (DYNASTIC) HISTORIES" WITH "DRAFT HISTORY OF QING DYNASTY" (NINE VOLUMES COMPLETE)

Author: Various Chinese historians
Title: "TWENTY-FOUR STANDARD (DYNASTIC) HISTORIES" WITH "DRAFT HISTORY OF QING DYNASTY" (NINE VOLUMES COMPLETE)
Publication: Taipei, Taiwan: Kaiming Press, 1969
Edition: Reprint

Description: Hardcover. TEXT IN CHINESE. Matching set of nine volumes. Quarto, 11.5 in. x 8.5 in., 7949pp. contiguous over nine volumes. Gray-brown paper boards with gilt title (in Chinese) to fronts and gilt emblem to backs. Gilt titles to spines. Light rubbing to edges and spine caps. A couple of nudged corners. Decorative endpapers. Protected in mylar.

This edition is noteworthy in being a version of these vast histories in a "mere" nine-volume set. This approachable version of the standard histories is considered "handy," given that the standard version compiled in the Qing period had over 3200 volumes!

Altogether, 24 histories were written, one for each dynasty over a period of 1,832 years. The histories cover a wide range of topics, including the lives of emperors, political events, military campaigns, cultural developments, and social trends.

n 1961, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the declaration of the Republic of China (ROC), the ROC government in Taiwan published the History of Qing, adding 21 supplementary chapters to the Draft History of Qing and revising many existing chapters to denounce the People's Republic of China (PRC) as an illegitimate, impostor regime. It also removed passages that were derogatory towards the Xinhai Revolution.

This 1961 edition (here reprinted in 1969) has not been widely accepted as the official Qing history because it is recognized that it was a rushed job motivated by political objectives. Very Good.

Apart from the first and possibly second of these histories (there is some dispute about the second), these histories were written under official authorization by government-employed historians. The first, which was actually a private endeavor, is the great Historical Records written by Sima Qian (145- 87? CE) and is a history of China from its mythical origins (ca. 2500 BCE) up to his, Sima Qian's, own time--that is, roughly 100 BCE. After him, these histories were of specific "dynastic chunks," the way in which Chinese history has always been constructed: Han, Tang, Song, etc. An official or standard Chinese history was a project undertaken by the dynasty that followed the one being written about.

Since a new dynasty typically arose when the previous one had fallen, these official histories sometimes have an interesting but somewhat slanted way of portraying the preceding dynasty. This process went on throughout the long history of China until the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) history, which was completed under the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), the last dynasty before the establishment of the Republic of China in 1911.

Now, it is incorrect to conclude: "China had twenty-five dynasties." It is more complicated than that. There were long periods of disunity and regionalism in Chinese history, which resulted in "dynasties" that ruled only one region, while another competing "dynasty" ruled in some other region, and a number of these regional dynasties also have "official dynastic histories." Moreover, the rather powerful Tang dynasty, for example, has two dynastic histories, competing versions we might say, written under the auspices of different later emperors. And there are other such unusual features of this historical tradition. These histories have long been considered the must-read foundation of Chinese history, although reading them all would be a monumental task!

Seller ID: 88764

Subject: History – World