Sima Qian

Ssu-ma Ch’ien (145–ca. 86 B.C.) was an official at the court of the Han Emperor Wu (r. 141–87 B.C.), who was involved in the compilation of a mammoth historical project that resulted in this history, which came to be known as the Shih chi (The Grand Scribe’s Records).William H. Nienhauser, Jr., is the Halls-Bascom Professor of Classical Chinese Literature at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and editor of five previous volumes of The Grand Scribe’s Records.