Turning Points

Whether or not Solzhenitsyn made up the passage below about a Russian commander in 1914, it provokes numerous questions:

• How often do critical moments in political behavior occur?
• How often are they recognized?
• How can one detect them in time and figure out how to respond?

Fulfilling Grandiose Plans

Solzhenitsyn (see previous post) is not the only Russian novelist to have had something to say about human military plans and their outcomes. The man Solzhenitsyn no doubt had very much in mind when writing August 1914 is also worth remembering in this context. In War and Peace, Tolstoy observed, for example:

Solzhenitsyn on Military Defeat

Lessons from history are revealed not by events but by good history, i.e., by interpretation, and a good historical novel can serve that purpose remarkably well. Consider the following marvelous explanation for Tsarist Russia’s debacle in WWI at the hands of the rapidly modernizing and efficiency-oriented Germany:

de Mailla’s Translation of Zhu Xi’s History of China

The only Chinese history between the end of the Han and the Manchu era translated into a modern European language of which I am aware is Zhu Xi (Chu Hsi)’s T’ung chien kang mu (Outline and Digest of the General Mirror), which was translated by de Mailla as the Histoire generale de la China (Paris 1777-85) and reprinted by Ch’eng-wen on Taiwan in 1967.  Zhu Xi condensed Sima Guang’s earlier work, finishing around 1172.

As far as I can tell not only are the original Chinese version and original French version out of print (no surprise) but even the reprint is out of print, and the publisher apparently out of business.

Does anyone know differently or know where one might obtain a reprint of the original Chinese text or de Mailla’s translation?

Zizhi Tongjian in Modern Chinese

The prolific Taiwanese author Bo Yang evidently translated Sima Guang’s 12th century history, Zizhi Tongjian, into modern Chinese, with the volumes evidently being published between 1982 and 1989.  Does anyone know any details about this, e.g., where one might purchase it?

Notes on Sima Guang’s Zizhi Tongjian

Following are a few websites that have useful information on Sima Guang’s Zizhi Tongjian:

Searching Ancient Historical Texts for Lessons

The more attention one pays to how humans are managing the contemporary world, the clearer becomes the message that we need to learn from history.  Unfortunately, many of the lessons of history are buried in ancient texts that are inaccessible to most of us because they are written in someone else’s language.  Even if you read the language, the text may be either long (Sima Guang’s Comprehensive Mirror, of which more later, is ten 900-page volumes) or unavailable outside of a rare research library.  I hope in this blog will stimulate the sharing of information on ancient histories -

* which to read

* excerpts of note

* where to find translations

* where to purchase a rare copy.

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I have a particular interest in Sima Guang’s Zizhi tongjian [Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government] and would like to invite comments on editions and translations that may be available. 

Rafe deCrespigny’s translation of chapters from the Later Han sections, so generously posted on the Net, is a wonderful entre into the world of Sima Qian.  Are there others - translations, glossaries?

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I personally will focus on classical Chinese texts but invite others to broaden the scope.

 Two questions for readers to get things started:

1. Where might I find a copy of a modern Chinese version of Sima Qian’s history?  One was published a few years ago in Taiwan but appears to be out of print.

2. Moving away from the Chinese histories with which I have at least a bit of familiarity, does anyone have any recommendations on pre-modern Persian histories that might teach us something of value for our lives today…and be available in a European language?