The Grand Scribe’s Records, Volume XI presents the final nine memoirs of Ssu-ma Ch’ien’s history, continuing the series of collective biographies with seven more prosopographies on the ruthless officials, the wandering gallants, the artful favorites, those who discern auspicious days, turtle and stalk diviners, and those whose goods increase, punctuated by the final account of Emperor Wu’s wars against neighboring peoples and concluded with Ssu-ma Ch’ien’s postface containing a history of his family and himself.

The Grand Scribe's Records, Volume XI presents the final nine memoirs of Ssu-ma Ch'ien's history, continuing the series of collective biographies with seven more prosopographies on the ruthless officials, the wandering gallants, the artful favorites, those who discern auspicious days, turtle and stalk diviners, and those whose goods increase, punctuated by the final account of Emperor Wu's wars against neighboring peoples and concluded with Ssu-ma Ch'ien's postface containing a history of his family and himself.

The Grand Scribe's Records, Volume XI presents the final nine memoirs of Ssu-ma Ch'ien's history, continuing the series of collective biographies with seven more prosopographies on the ruthless officials, the wandering gallants, the artful favorites, those who discern auspicious days, turtle and stalk diviners, and those whose goods increase, punctuated by the final account of Emperor Wu's wars against neighboring peoples and concluded with Ssu-ma Ch'ien's postface containing a history of his family and himself.

The Grand Scribe's Records, Volume XI presents the final nine memoirs of Ssu-ma Ch'ien's history, continuing the series of collective biographies with seven more prosopographies on the ruthless officials, the wandering gallants, the artful favorites, those who discern auspicious days, turtle and stalk diviners, and those whose goods increase, punctuated by the final account of Emperor Wu's wars against neighboring peoples and concluded with Ssu-ma Ch'ien's postface containing a history of his family and himself.

The Grand Scribe's Records, Volume XI presents the final nine memoirs of Ssu-ma Ch'ien's history, continuing the series of collective biographies with seven more prosopographies on the ruthless officials, the wandering gallants, the artful favorites, those who discern auspicious days, turtle and stalk diviners, and those whose goods increase, punctuated by the final account of Emperor Wu's wars against neighboring peoples and concluded with Ssu-ma Ch'ien's postface containing a history of his family and himself.

With Part I of the two-part fifth volume of Ssu-ma Ch'ien's Shi chi (The Grand Scribe's Records), we enter the world of the shih chia or "hereditary houses." These ten chapters trace the history of China's first states, from their establishment in the 11th century B.C. until their incorporation in the first empire under the Ch'in in 221 B.C. Combining myth, anecdote, chronicle, and biography based on early written and oral sources, many no longer extant, the narratives make for compelling reading, as dramatic and readable as any in this grand history.

This second volume of the ongoing annotated translation of Ssu-ma Ch'ien's Shi chi(The Grand Scribe's Records), widely acknowledged as the most important early Chinese history, contains the "basic annals" of five early Han-dynasty emperors. The annals trace the first century of Han rule (206 BC to ca. 100 BC) in a year-by-year account that focuses on imperial activities. In The Grand Scribe's Records, Ssu-ma Ch'ien revitalised the style of the annals he had written for previous rulers. Here are accounts of the peasant who founded the dynasty, Liu Pang, a man noted as much for his licentiousness as he was his ruthless political instinct, and of his cruel wife, Empress Lÿ, who murdered her chief rival for Liu Pang's affections in the most gruesome manner. The annals of two relatively undistinguished emperors follow. The volume concludes with Ssu-ma's depiction of perhaps the greatest ruler of the Han, Emperor Wu, told within the context of his delusive attempts to find a means to achieve immortality. When completed this translation will bring all 130 chapters of the Shih chi into English. Volumes 1 and 7 were published by Indiana University Press in 1994.