Twenty-Four Histories


The Twenty-Four Histories, also known as the Orthodox Histories, are the Chinese official historical books covering a period from 3000 BC to the Ming dynasty in the 17th century.
The Han dynasty official Sima Qian established many of the conventions of the genre, but the form was not fixed until much later. Starting with the Tang dynasty, each dynasty established an official office to write the history of its predecessor using official court records. As fixed and edited in the Qing dynasty, the whole set contains 3213 volumes and about 40 million words. It is considered one of the most important sources on Chinese history and culture.
The title "Twenty-Four Histories" dates from 1775 which was the 40th year in the reign of the Qianlong Emperor. This was when the last volume, the History of Ming was reworked and a complete set of the histories produced.

Collection

Inheritance works

These works were begun by one historian and completed by an heir, usually of the next generation.
There were attempts at producing new historiographies after the Qing dynasty, but they either never gained widespread acceptance as part of the official historical canon or they remain unfinished.
TitleCorresponding dynastyMain authorYear of compilationNotes
New History of Yuan
新元史		Yuan dynastyKe Shaomin
1920 Part of the Twenty-Five Histories
Draft History of Qing
清史稿		Qing dynastyZhao Erxun
1927

Modern attempts at creating the official Qing history

In 1961, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the declaration of the Republic of China, the ROC government in Taiwan published the History of Qing, adding 21 supplementary chapters to the Draft History of Qing and revising many existing chapters to denounce the People's Republic of China as an illegitimate, impostor regime. It also removed passages that were derogatory towards the Xinhai Revolution. This edition has not been widely accepted as the official Qing history because it is recognized that it was a rushed job motivated by political objectives. It does not correct most of the errors known to exist in the Draft History of Qing.
An additional project, attempting to write a New History of Qing incorporating new materials and improvements in historiography, lasted from 1988 to 2000. Only 33 chapters out of the projected 500 were published. This project was later abandoned following the rise of the Pan-Green Coalition, which sees Taiwan as a distinct entity from Mainland China, both culturally and politically. As such, it is argued that it is not the duty of the Taiwanese regime to compile the Qing history.
In 1961, the PRC also attempted to complete the Qing history, but historians were prevented from doing so against the backdrop of the Cultural Revolution.
In 2002, the PRC once again announced that it would complete the History of Qing. The project is under the leadership of Dai Yi. As of December 2013, the project has been delayed twice and will not be completed until 2016.

Modern editions

In China, the Zhonghua Book Company have edited a number of these histories. They have been collated, edited, and punctuated by Chinese specialists.
From 1991 to 2003, it translated Classical Chinese into modern Written vernacular Chinese, edited by Xu Jialu and other scholars.

Translations

One of the Twenty-Four Histories is in the process of being fully translated into English: Records of the Grand Historian by William Nienhauser, in nine volumes,
In Korean and Vietnamese, only the Records has been translated. Most of the histories have been translated into Japanese.

Citations