Dawson and preface by Brashier (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2007)
The First Emperor: Selections from the Historical Records was written by multiple authors, none of whom are introduced. Not only are they not introduced, but their first names are not given, so it’s impossible to look them up. At first, this was cause for worry for me. Why would the authors not want their names known? Once I got into the book however, I realized it was likely just an oversight when producing an e-version of the book, as the book was rather well written. It’s unfortunate that I can’t figure out who the authors are, as I’d be interested in reading some of their other works, actually. The exception to this was Sima Quin, who was a renowned scribe in the Qin Empire.
The First Emperor: Selections from the Historical Records covers an excellent selection of Chinese (or really, pre-Chinese history I suppose). It begins with the birth of the first emperor. Covers his rise to power, covers some assassination attempts, the building of the great wall, and then includes a bunch of other supporting information. The book includes, for example, both the annuals of the Qin Empire, as well as thier Treatises. It also includes some other biographies of important players: the chief minister and two important rebels that are credited with bringing down the Qin Empire (Xiang Yu, and Chen Sheng). The Annuals talk a lot about the day to day operations of the Qin Empire, and through that it becomes possible to gain in insight into the daily lives of the government as well as what the government considers important.
I opted to read this book after watching the video on the First Emperor in class. I found it to be rather interesting and entertaining, and also finding a good book to read on serfdom is rather difficult, so I decided to read about China instead. After reading this, I’m likely to change my topic to something related to China, as this was a rather good and interesting read. To be entirely honest, I probably would have enjoyed a watered down version a little bit better. Some of the phrasing in this book was above my level just a tad, and I found myself using not only their supplied references but also a dictionary and Google far more frequently than I would have liked. I can’t really blame the book, because it is selections from Historical Records. The author simply picked which excerpts to include in the book, as well as wrote the preface and some supporting information throughout. The supporting information, while completely required to fully understand what exactly you’re about to read (as every chapter begins with some supporting information) seems a bit short, and I would have benefitted from having more information written in modern times available in the book. However, even considering that fact, being able to read some of the translated time-period writing gives a completely different insight into their time-period and this is invaluable. Some of the other references were also lackluster. The Author fails to explain what exactly Historical Records are, even though he references them throughout. The reader is left to assume that it isn’t explained in an attempt to not insult our intelligence, so I’m inclined to believe that the majority of the text is in fact translated from records of the actual Qin Empire. Also, another minor reference complaint is that the map at the beginning of the book is horrible. If I hadn’t had background knowledge on the topic, the map would have been entirely useless, and even with the background knowledge that I did have, the map was still nearly worthless.
Overall, I must say that The First Emperor: Selections from the Historical Records was a good read. It was not only very informative from what the modern author had to say, but also from a ‘getting inside the minds of the people of the time period’ perspective this read is invaluable. At one point, I wish I could find the page now, they make reference to a law that is being changed and state something to the extent of “And that’s how it will be for this generation, next generation, down to the ten thousandth generation” (Paraphrased from Qian) and just reading that line alone gave such an interesting insight into their minds. These people believed that they would exist forever, and it kind of puts all of their other actions into perspective.
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