The present volume provides a critical study of Sima Qian’s portrayal of the relations between the Han Dynasty and Xiongnu and offers a more accurate narrative of the events.
Emperor Wu is generally recognized as the greatest ruler of the
Han Dynasty, and his wars against the steppe warrior Xiongnu as one
of his greatest undertakings. To the chief narrator of these
events, ancient Chinese historian Sima Qian, the turning point in
Han Dynasty history was the way Emperor Wu had abandoned the policy
of peaceful relations with the Xiongnu, and launched China on a
series of campaigns that would last for decades. This has been
almost universally accepted as “truth” in modern
scholarship, but these claims cannot be taken at face value.
Firstly, this book identifies ways in which the Shiji account is
riddled with inconsistencies and deliberately misleading
information, and provides explanations for this. He hid signs of
rising disquiet with the peace policy of earlier rulers, and
concealed indications that for at least two decades China’s
leadership had been searching for alternatives.
Secondly, the work reconstructs a more accurate narrative of
events for one hundred years of Han – Xiongnu relations than
can be gained by a straight-forwarding reading of individual
chapters of the Shiji. A narrative emerges of an historian with an
agenda, and of a century of Han – Xiongnu relations that is
markedly different from any previously produced.
“(…) original and persuasive book (…)” (Paul R. Goldin, in Orientalistische Literaturzeitung, 113.3, 2018, p. 275)