How to make sense of a 2,100-year-old foundational text of Chinese civilization, a work that set the structural pattern for every subsequent dynastic history and continues to influence how the Chinese people think, communicate, and see themselves? Across Time and Space offers an inviting gateway. Developed from Professor Zhenghong Chen’s popular Fudan University courses and online lectures, this book distills four decades of rigorous scholarship in classical Chinese textual studies. It closely reads the first three structural genres of Sima Qian’s Shiji (The Grand Scribe’s Records)—the twelve dynasty- and ruler-centered “Basic Annals” and the often-overlooked yet seminal ten ”Tables” and eight “Treatises”—while engaging with two millennia of hermeneutic and reception history, drawing on recent archaeological discoveries, and featuring rich illustrations of important Shiji editions. Chen’s reading advances the thesis that the Shiji transcends mere chronology to provide foundational concepts for a shared cultural and political identity among the Chinese. The English edition captures Chen’s witty, relatable persona, making his unique blend of erudition and accessibility resonate as powerfully with English readers as it does with his original audience.

Chen Zhenghong is Professor at the Institute of Ancient Classics of Fudan University, mainly engaged in the teaching and research of bibliography of book editions, comparative philology, art literature, and art history. He has authored Intensive Reading of the Shiji, Bloodline: The Hereditary Houses of the Shiji, A Preliminary Probe into the Editional Study of Chinese Classsics in East Asia, A Chronological Biography of Shen Zhou, A Study of the History of Integrating Poetry and Painting and A Brief History of Forbidden Books in China, among others. In 2018, his online course on the Shiji launched on Himalaya FM attracted nearly 3 million listeners in China.

Huang Hongyu is Associate Professor and Associate Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen). She received her Ph.D. from Yale University and has taught Chinese language and literature at Swarthmore College and West Point. She has contributed to five volumes of The Grand Scribe‘s Rerords, an ongoing annotated translation of the Shiji. She is the recipient of the Philosophy and Social Science Outstanding Achievement Awards at both the municipal and provincial levels in China as well as the Commander’s Award for Civilian Service issued by the American government.

Bruce Knickerbocker is Senior Lecturer at Harbin Institute of Technology (Shenzhen). He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and has been Associate Professor of Translation Studies at Beijing Normal University-Hong Kong Baptist University, United International College (UIC), and Assistant Professor of Chinese Studies and Comparative Literature at both Northwestern University and Bard College in the United States. He has contributed to two volumes of The Grand Scribe‘s Rerords (Shiji), in addition to works in language pedagogy and Tang chuanqi tales.