The Treatises of Later Han: Their Author, Sources, Contents and Place in Chinese Historiography.

• Author: Su, Jui-Lung

A study of the eight treatises in the Hou Han shu of Sima Biao, which are full of difficult language and technical passages, constitutes a most formidable task for any historian. With his remarkable erudition and rigorous scholarship, Dr. Mansvelt Beck presents a systematic and definitive study of these important documents. His book is free from personal and emotional speculation. The reader will not find any theory or conjecture that is not based on reliable evidence or facts. Another impressive aspect of the author's approach is his employment of charts and tables to elucidate complicated historiographical issues. For example, in order to show all the possible sources and material Sima Biao may have consulted in writing his Xu Han shu, Mansvelt Beck provides a list of histories of the Later Han extant at the time that Sima Biao wrote (pp. 17-18).

The work is organized as its sub-title indicates. In the first chapter, the author outlines Sima Biao's life and investigates Sima Biao's Xu Han shu and its possible sources. He also brings to our attention Wang Xianqian's (1842-1918) Hou Han shu jijie (Collected Commentaries on the Hou Han shu), which is in some ways superior to the modern Beijing punctuated edition. These two editions are both indispensable in the study of the treatises. Before launching into the treatises themselves, Mansvelt Beck devotes chapter 2 to surveying the treatises included in early dynastic histories. At the end of the chapter, he deliberates E. Balazs' view that the purpose of all treatises without exception is to "provide a general education for political purpose" (p. 55).

Chapters 3 through 11 are a systematic study of the eight treatises. Numerous important passages in the treatises are translated that have never been translated before. Each chapter includes a fundamental structure with some variations: previous models for the treatise; structure of the treatise; the treatise proper; outline of the treatise; authorship; important issues; conclusion. Conclusions are drawn from careful comparisons of textual sources, previous scholarly opinions, and the author's own insight. He also often draws our attention to overlooked details that lead to striking findings. As a result, there are no issues in the treatises that are not discussed thoroughly.

Because of the importance of the treatises on the "heavens" and "Five Phases," Mansvelt Beck provides a supplementary chapter entitled "Portent Treatises." These two...