I read that in chinese history, there are a few level or ranks of history:

1. 1st History
- This refers to 100% historical accuracy, a full re-enactment of 100% historical truth, whether it's about historical events, historical figures etc.

2. 2nd History
- This refers to the 'right' history (zhengshi 正史) according to records by chinese historians. In particular, it refers to the authoritative source such as 24 histories. Although chinese historians will write what is most 'correct', but due to some personal issues such as biasedness, negligence, some historical events/recording might be neglected or even brushed aside (minimally).

3. 3rd History
- This refers to 'non-conventional' history (yeshi 野史）that were written. Some might be valuable, but some might have 'legendary content' in them.

Today, most historians try to make history nearer to "1st history", but in practice, it is impossible to re-nact the 'full 1st history' (100% historical accuracy), simply because we did not live during that time and we did not witness the event and we are not the historical figures ourselves. What most historians tried was to study 2nd history (comparing various sources) and balance it with archaeological discovery/evidence so as to try to make history nearer to 1st history.

What is your view? Do you think there is a "100% historical accuracy/truth" in chinese history?

Has anyone read shitong 《史通》 , the Tang treatise which contained chinese history method, how to compare various sources and differentiating/deciphering historical truth ?

This all assumes that the essence of history is simply to record facts. This is a discussion I had recently with Liu Bang.

May I propose that history is more than knowing "facts", i.e. dates, people, etc, and is in fact about underatsnding the causes of things, which may not even be perfectly known or understood by the actors at the time? If this is the case, then there can be no such thing as 100% correct history.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Isaiah Berlin had something to say about this, and shall endeavour to track it down. He can be a little wordy though!!!!

Hi,

I think you got it all wrong. I did not say that the essence of history is all about facts or anything. You can understand many things from history and apply them in real life. Also, history is all about the past- the causes of events, the reactions of people, the psychological and mental behaviours. Facts are included, as well as people, events etc.

In my opinion, there is no part of history defined as 100% accurate. It could be close to accuracy, but not 100%. There is bound to be a little doubt in between. For instance, Liu Bang founded the Han Dynasty. This is true, but some people might question the statement as, "Without his officials, could he still manage to establish the Han Dynasty?" Therefore, shouldn't it be "Liu Bang, together with the help of his officials, founded the Han Dynasty"? This would lead to debates and disagreements.

And it all boils down to different mindsets.

That is true only of history before the invention of photography and video cameras, and the rise of international journalism. Unless the internet and most newspaper, photo, and film archives in the world are destroyed by some big disaster, historians studying the history of the last 80 years or so, as well as future historians studying the history of the 21st century, would have few problems accessing recorded visual images and eye-witness accounts of the major events. They may not be able to reconstruct 100% of the facts involved, but they can in many cases reconstruct at least 99%. The exceptions are events to which journalists had no access, or where the recorded images and accounts are kept confidential by the government.

Technically, anything that has already happened in the material world, as opposed to the world of thought or imagination, can be considered a fact. Even the speaking of a word or the writing of a sentence is a fact, whereas the thinking of a thought is arguably not a fact since it cannot be witnessed by anyone besides the thinker. The dropping of a single leaf from a tree and the eating of a single ant by an anteater are likewise facts, even if they go unwitnessed and unrecorded by any human being. But the historian's work is usually to

1) first reconstruct facts from the specifically human traces left by these facts (e.g., written texts, photographs, film footage, material artefacts), through a process of interpreting the reliability, accuracy, and meaning of the traces,

2) and then (where possible) to use the reconstruction to make an explanation, an assessment, or even a theory.

The accuracy and completeness of any reconstruction depends on the number of traces (which we call 'evidence') available and the skill and judgment employed in interpreting them, so it is natural that in many cases, the reconstruction is tentative pending the discovery of more traces/evidence and the use of better skill and judgment. It seems that both of you are pointing out that historians should not stop at the reconstruction stage and should instead proceed on to the explanation/assessment/theorizing stage. That is very true, but a big problem with many modern historians is actually that for the sake of demonstrating why their work 'matters' to society, they rush into the second stage without first doing a proper job on the first stage. You then get lots of explanations, assessments, and theories that are half-baked or politically-motivated and have no solid basis in the evidence.

Ahhhh, Grasshopper. You are learning well.

well, there can't be 100% correct history,
most recorded history in zhengshi is still based on stories, the recorders never experienced the events.
futhermore, chinese people is known for exaggeration of facts

IMHO, not only in ancient time, even in recent times when an incident is recorded as history, none of us can ensure its 100% genuinity since, as GZ said before, there are always lack of eyewitnesses and proven records.

If I didn't remember wrongly, Sima Qian personally went down to Huainan to collect information about Han Xin from the people of Huainan, as he was the Marquis of that area.



Duh, you should see the words used to describe how the ancient emperors look like- a fierce as a tiger, with sharp eyes like a hawk, the strong aura radiating around them etc. These are all exaggerations.

It is important to remember that the modern concept of history as we understand it now dates only to the 17th/18th centuries. We differentiate between historical fact and what we call "myth." Earlier cultures did not make the same sort of distinctions--in other words, whether or not you could prove that this or that actually happened was not as important as what the event meant.

Craig Cowing

There is actually a way get pure 100% historical accuracy... it's to use a really powerful outerspace telescope - like the Hubble - and catch a glimpse of a highly reflective object or debree floating in space at just the right distance in light-year and poised at earth. Light from earth at the time of the historical event then travels to and from the object and gets recieved by the telescope in the present. Then it could all be recorded into data and analysed.

...Other than that, there's no way unfortunately.