Sima Qian [SEP] father
authors all suffered great personal misfortunes before their lasting monumental works could come to fruition.
Early life and education.
Sima Qian was born at Xiayang in Zuopingyi (around present-day Hancheng, Shaanxi Province) around 145, though some sources give his birth year as around 135. Around 136, his father, Sima Tan, received an appointment to the relatively low-ranking position of "grand historian" ("tàishǐ" , alt. "grand scribe" or "grand astrologer"). The grand historian
Sima Qian
Sima Qian (; ; c. 145 – c. 86 BC) was a Chinese historian of the early Han dynasty (206AD220). He is considered the father of Chinese historiography for his "Records of the Grand Historian", a general history of China in the "Jizhuanti" style (紀傳體) covering more than two thousand years beginning from the rise of the legendary Yellow Emperor and the formation of the first Chinese polity to the reigning sovereign of Sima Qian's time, Emperor Wu of Han. As the first