Zuozhuan and Early Chinese Historiography

Zuozhuan and Early Chinese Historiography PDF Author: Yuri Pines
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004685367
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 405

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Book Description
Zuozhuan (Zuo Tradition) is the foundational text of Chinese historiography and the largest text from preimperial China. For two millennia, its immense complexity has given rise to countless controversies, with scholars debating its nature, time of composition, and historical reliability. In the present volume—the first of its kind in any Western language—leading scholars of ancient China, Greece, and Rome approach Zuozhuan from multi-faceted perspectives to examine in detail Zuozhuan’s sources, narrative patterns, and meta-narrative devices; analyze the text in dialogue with other ancient Chinese works; and open it to the comparative study with ancient Greek and Roman historiography. Contributors are: Chen Minzhen, Stephen Durrant, Joachim Gentz, Martin Kern, Wai-yee Li, Nino Luraghi, Ellen O’Gorman, Yuri Pines, David Schaberg, and Kai Vogelsang.

Zuozhuan and Early Chinese Historiography

Zuozhuan and Early Chinese Historiography PDF Author: Yuri Pines
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004685367
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 405

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Book Description
Zuozhuan (Zuo Tradition) is the foundational text of Chinese historiography and the largest text from preimperial China. For two millennia, its immense complexity has given rise to countless controversies, with scholars debating its nature, time of composition, and historical reliability. In the present volume—the first of its kind in any Western language—leading scholars of ancient China, Greece, and Rome approach Zuozhuan from multi-faceted perspectives to examine in detail Zuozhuan’s sources, narrative patterns, and meta-narrative devices; analyze the text in dialogue with other ancient Chinese works; and open it to the comparative study with ancient Greek and Roman historiography. Contributors are: Chen Minzhen, Stephen Durrant, Joachim Gentz, Martin Kern, Wai-yee Li, Nino Luraghi, Ellen O’Gorman, Yuri Pines, David Schaberg, and Kai Vogelsang.

The Readability of the Past in Early Chinese Historiography

The Readability of the Past in Early Chinese Historiography PDF Author: Wai-yee Li
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684174198
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 474

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Book Description
"The past becomes readable when we can tell stories and make arguments about it. When we can tell more than one story or make divergent arguments, the readability of the past then becomes an issue. Therein lies the beginning of history, the sense of inquiry that heightens our awareness of interpretation. How do interpretive structures develop and disintegrate? What are the possibilities and limits of historical knowledge? This book explores these issues through a study of the Zuozhuan, a foundational text in the Chinese tradition, whose rhetorical and analytical self-consciousness reveals much about the contending ways of thought unfolding during the period of the text’s formation (ca. 4th c. B.C.E.). But in what sense is this vast collection of narratives and speeches covering the period from 722 to 468 B.C.E. “historical”? If one can speak of an emergent sense of history in this text, Wai-yee Li argues, it lies precisely at the intersection of varying conceptions of interpretation and rhetoric brought to bear on the past, within a larger context of competing solutions to the instability and disintegration represented through the events of the 255 years covered by the Zuozhuan. Even as its accounts of proliferating disorder and disintegration challenge the boundaries of readability, the deliberations on the rules of reading in the Zuozhuan probe the dimensions of historical self-consciousness."

Zuo Tradition / Zuozhuan

Zuo Tradition / Zuozhuan PDF Author:
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295806737
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 2243

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Book Description
Zuo Tradition (Zuozhuan; sometimes called The Zuo Commentary) is China�s first great work of history. It consists of two interwoven texts - the Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu, a terse annalistic record) and a vast web of narratives and speeches that add context and interpretation to the Annals. Completed by about 300 BCE, it is the longest and one of the most difficult texts surviving from pre-imperial times. It has been as important to the foundation and preservation of Chinese culture as the historical books of the Hebrew Bible have been to the Jewish and Christian traditions. It has shaped notions of history, justice, and the significance of human action in the Chinese tradition perhaps more so than any comparable work of Latin or Greek historiography has done to Western civilization. This translation, accompanied by the original text, an introduction, and annotations, will finally make Zuozhuan accessible to all.

Zuo Tradition / Zuozhuan

Zuo Tradition / Zuozhuan PDF Author:
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295999152
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages : 2243

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Book Description
Zuo Tradition (Zuozhuan; sometimes called The Zuo Commentary) is China�s first great work of history. It consists of two interwoven texts - the Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu, a terse annalistic record) and a vast web of narratives and speeches that add context and interpretation to the Annals. Completed by about 300 BCE, it is the longest and one of the most difficult texts surviving from pre-imperial times. It has been as important to the foundation and preservation of Chinese culture as the historical books of the Hebrew Bible have been to the Jewish and Christian traditions. It has shaped notions of history, justice, and the significance of human action in the Chinese tradition perhaps more so than any comparable work of Latin or Greek historiography has done to Western civilization. This translation, accompanied by the original text, an introduction, and annotations, will finally make Zuozhuan accessible to all.

The Tso Chuan

The Tso Chuan PDF Author: Ming Zuoqiu
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231067157
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
A vivid chronicle of events in the feudal states of China between 722 and 468 B.C., the Tso Chuan has long been considered both a major historical document and and an influential literary model. Covering over 250 years, these historical narratives focus not only on the political, diplomatic, and military affairs of ancient China, but also on its economic and cultural developments during the turbulent era when warring feudal states were gradually working towards unification. Ending shortly after Confucius' death in 479 B.C., the Tso Chuan provides a background to the life and thought of Confucius and his followers that is available in no other work.

The Zuo Tradition / Zuozhuan Reader

The Zuo Tradition / Zuozhuan Reader PDF Author:
Publisher: University of Washington Press
ISBN: 0295747765
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
Zuo Tradition, China’s first great work of history, was completed by about 300 BCE and recounts events during a period of disunity from 722 to 468 BCE. The text, which plays a foundational role in Chinese culture, has been newly translated into English by Stephen Durrant, Wai-yee Li, and David Schaberg in an unabridged, bilingual, three-volume set. This reader arranges key passages from that set according to topic, as a guide to the study of early Chinese culture and thought. Chapter subjects include succession struggles; women; warfare; ritual propriety; governance; law and punishment; famous statesmen; diplomacy; Confucius and his disciples; dreams and anomalies; and cultural others. An introduction explains the nature and significance of Zuozhuan and discusses how to read the text. Section introductions and judicious footnoting provide contextual information and explain the historical significance and meaning of particular events. The Zuo Tradition / Zuozhuan Reader will appeal to readers interested in Chinese and world history, claiming a place on library and personal bookshelves alongside other narratives from the ancient world.

A Patterned Past

A Patterned Past PDF Author: David Schaberg
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1684173612
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 530

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Book Description
In this comprehensive study of the rhetoric, narrative patterns, and intellectual content of the Zuozhuan and Guoyu, David Schaberg reads these two collections of historical anecdotes as traces of a historiographical practice that flourished around the fourth century BCE among the followers of Confucius. He contends that the coherent view of early China found in these texts is an effect of their origins and the habits of reading they impose. Rather than being totally accurate accounts, they represent the efforts of a group of officials and ministers to argue for a moralizing interpretation of the events of early Chinese history and for their own value as skilled interpreters of events and advisers to the rulers of the day.

The Zuo Tradition/Zuozhuan Reader

The Zuo Tradition/Zuozhuan Reader PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780295747750
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"A selection of key passages from Durrant, Li, and Schaberg's three-volume translation of the Zuozhan"--

Dubious Facts

Dubious Facts PDF Author: Garret P. S. Olberding
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438443919
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
What were the intentions of early China's historians? Modern readers must contend with the tension between the narrators' moralizing commentary and their description of events. Although these historians had notions of evidence, it is not clear to what extent they valued what contemporary scholars would deem "hard" facts. Offering an innovative approach to premodern historical documents, Garret P. S. Olberding argues that the speeches of court advisors reveal subtle strategies of information management in the early monarchic context. Olberding focuses on those addresses concerning military campaigns where evidence would be important in guiding immediate social and political policy. His analysis reveals the sophisticated conventions that governed the imperial advisor's logic and suasion in critical state discussions, which were specifically intended to counter anticipated doubts. Dubious Facts illuminates both the decision-making processes that informed early Chinese military campaigns and the historical records that represent them.

Zuo Tradition

Zuo Tradition PDF Author: Stephen W. Durrant
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780295999166
Category : HISTORY
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Zuo Tradition (Zuozhuan; sometimes called The Zuo Commentary) is China's first great work of history. It consists of two interwoven texts - the Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu, a terse annalistic record) and a vast web of narratives and speeches that add context and interpretation to the Annals. Completed by about 300 BCE, it is the longest and one of the most difficult texts surviving from pre-imperial times. It has been as important to the foundation and preservation of Chinese culture as the historical books of the Hebrew Bible have been to the Jewish and Christian traditions. It has shaped notions of history, justice, and the significance of human action in the Chinese tradition perhaps more so than any comparable work of Latin or Greek historiography has done to Western civilization. This translation of Volume Two, accompanied by the original text, an introduction, and annotations, will finally make Zuozhuan accessible to all.