Sima Qian · Civilisations

To Transmit, Not to Create

How Sima Qian actually gathered and weighed his vast materials - travelling, comparing sources, exercising skepticism - within the Confucian ideal of transmitting the past rather than inventing it.

What you'll be able to recall

You learned that Sima Qian gathered sources critically and worked within the ideal of transmitting rather than creating. Explain his method and the tension between faithful transmission and the historian’s judgment, in your own words.

Leads to Leopold von Ranke.

epoché — a humanities education that remembers you.