Istoricheskie zapiski (Shi Tsi), vol. 6, Syma Tsyan.

• Author: Bodde, Derk

This sixth volume of Viatkin's Russian translation of the Shih chi covers chapters 41-60 (the last twenty of its "Hereditary Houses"). This means that he has now transiated approximately 62% of the total work, and thus has forged ahead of his two major Western predecessors: Edouard Chavannes (translator of SC 1-52, or approx. 57% of the total text) and Burton Watson (translator of most of the SC's Han chapters, or approx. 42% of the total).(1) Three further volumes of Russian translation are planned to cover the remaining seventy chapters of biographies: 7 (SC 61-85), 8 (SC 86-110) and 9 (SC 111-130).

The fact that the present sixth volume lacks a list price and is printed in only 2,200 copies (as compared with a list price of Rubles 3.40 and an edition of 5,000 copies for vol. 5) no doubt reflects the uncertainties of economic life in Russia today. Nonetheless, vol. 6 seems, if anything, somewhat better than its predecessor in printing, paper and format. Within its front and back covers, for example, appear three excellent maps of Warring States China, the Ch'in Empire, and the Former Han Empire. The arrangement of materials is much the same as in previous volumes: an introduction; a translation of the successive twenty chapters; notes for the same; a bibliography divided into Russian, other Western, and Chinese/Japanese works; several pre-Ch'in chronological tables; indices of personal, geographic, and ethnic names, as well as technical terms; and finally a two-page English summary.

The economic...