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“... with historians, there is no doubt they would soon agree that there was only one true candidate, Sima Qian (?145-?89 BC), author of the Shi Ji, or ‘Historical Records’. Sima Qian’s claim to greatness rests on a number of interconnected factors. He was, first, immensely ambitious. He designed his masterwork ...”

“... around for kindling, but were forced to use books to start a fire: the complete collection of Sima Qian’s Shi Ji (Records of the Grand Historian) went up in flames. He told me he’d wept with shame after they finished the radish soup. ‘I burned Sima Qian because I’d yielded to the demands of my ...”

“... soul. No major chronicles appear till the 12th century, over a millennium later than Herodotus or Sima Qian, and no histoire raisonnée as a cumulative body of writing ever emerged. Gandhi’s dictum dismissing the worth of any memory of the past – ‘history is an interruption of nature’ – is a famous modern expression of this outlook. In such a ...”