Few Greek inscriptions are preserved complete and easy to read. Much labour goes into deciphering the letters and conjecturing restorations to fill in what is no longer preserved at all. Such efforts encourage overvaluing what is said, as if the detective work of the epigrapher, designed to discover the truth about what was on the stone (bronze, ceramic, and so on), guaranteed that what was on the stone revealed a complex reality, rather than being itself a complex reality. Thinking about inscriptions, not as ‘documents’ but as historical writing, brings to the foreground the deliberate spinning of a tale that is involved in all decisions to communicate on a hard surface, especially one that is public and enduring. (查看原文)
The decision of Ban Gu to adopt for his own Hanshu and abbreviated version of the Shiji’s system of categorisation set a pattern that would inform official dynastic histories down to the end of imperial times. The retrospective habit by which writers of a newly risen regime sought to document the important events and personages of the preceding era likewise became conventional.
Never would and official history match the openness of the Shiji to the anecdotal lore of talks. The rise of ‘history’ proper in China did in some ways imply the delegitimization of history’s others, including oratory, quasi-historical narration, and the free theorisation on laws of historical development. But it is important to recognise that the are of the anecdote never disappeared in China and never quite lost ... (查看原文)
哲夫成城
0 有用 俯仰千年 2018-03-25 00:59:55
很好，古典时期各文明拿捏的很到位，删削是个技术活~
0 有用 咖喱牛肉粉 2020-06-13 14:03:05
这种书不如不要翻译
0 有用 Yaolinda 2024-02-08 17:36:50 北京
现代历史学家写古代历史学家，挺有意思的～
0 有用 隱生 2019-12-27 15:52:47
失望，可能是撰写体例的原因。
0 有用 德雷斯罗萨 2022-04-09 18:53:25
关于中国早期的部分，执笔者是夏含夷、史嘉柏、李惠仪、陆威仪，汉以后部分不太熟悉。其他文明的历史写作部分也值得翻一翻，很有启发。