Published on March 19, 2026 [Episode 447]
Introduction
About a century before the birth of Jesus, during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, a remarkable man began a nearly unprecedented intellectual endeavor. Sima Qian, like his father before him, was an official in the imperial court. Working on a plan left behind by his father, Sima Qian began writing a history of China for the two thousand years before his own time. The scope of his labors, and the historiographical discipline and philosophy of history that he brought to them, make him a sort of combination of Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, and Plutarch. Yet in many ways, his personal life was just as extraordinary.
With me to discuss this monumental figure in the writing of history, either in China or anywhere else, is Andrew Meyer, Professor of History at Brooklyn College, and an expert in early Chinese intellectual history. He was recently on the podcast discussing his book To Rule All under Heaven: A History of Classical China, from Confucius to the First Emperor.
About the Guest
Andrew Meyer is Professor of History at Brooklyn College and a specialist in the intellectual history of early China. He is the author of The Dao of the Military: Liu An’s Art of War and co-author of The Huainanzi: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Government in Early Han China. His most recent book is To Rule All under Heaven: A History of Classical China, from Confucius to the First Emperor.
For Further Investigation
Andrew Meyer, To Rule All under Heaven: A History of Classical China (Oxford, 2026)
Sima Qian, Records of the Grand Historian, translated by Burton Watson
Mark Edward Lewis, The Early Chinese Empires: Qin and Han (Harvard, 2010)
Michael Nylan, The Five “Confucian” Classics (Yale, 2008)
Stephen Durrant, The Cloudy Mirror: Tension and Conflict in the Writings of Sima Qian (SUNY Press, 1995)
Reflection Questions
What distinguishes Sima Qian’s approach to history from earlier traditions of record-keeping or storytelling?
How does personal experience—especially suffering—shape a historian’s understanding of the past?
What responsibilities does a historian have when writing about power, failure, and moral judgment?
Tags
Sima Qian; Andrew Meyer; Chinese history; historiography; Han Dynasty; classical China; history of history; intellectual history
