TY - GEN T1 - Technical arts in the Han histories : tables and treatises in the Shiji and Hanshu T2 - SUNY series in Chinese philosophy and culture. A2 - Csikszentmihalyi, Mark A2 - Nylan, Michael LA - English PP - Albany PB - SUNY Press YR - 2021 UL - https://ebooks.jgu.edu.in/Record/jstor_dda_on1277277529 AB - While cultural literacy in early China was grounded in learning the Classics, basic competence in official life was generally predicated on acquiring several forms of technical knowledge. Recent archaeological finds have brought renewed attention to the use of technical manuals and mantic techniques within a huge range of discrete contexts, pushing historians to move beyond the generalities offered by past scholarship. To explore these uses, Technical Arts in the Han Histories delves deeply into the rarely studied "Treatises" and "Tables" compiled for the first two standard histories, the Shiji (Historical Records) and Hanshu (History of Han), important supplements to the better-known biographical chapters, and models for the inclusion of technical subjects in the twenty-three later "Standard Histories" of imperial China. Indeed, for a great many aspects of life in early imperial society, they constitute our best primary sources for understanding complex realities and perceptions. The essays in this volume seek to explain how different social groups thought of, disseminated, and withheld technical knowledge relating to the body, body politic, and cosmos, in the process of detailing the preoccupations of successive courts from Qin through Eastern Han in administering the localities, the frontier zones, and their numerous subjects (at the time, roughly one-quarter of the world's population) CN - T27.C5 T43 2021 SN - 9781438485447 SN - 1438485441 KW - Sima, Qian, : approximately 145 B.C.-approximately 86 B.C. : Shi ji. KW - Ban, Gu, : 32-92. : Han shu. KW - Han shu (Ban, Gu) KW - Shi ji (Sima, Qian) KW - Technology : China : Early works to 1800. KW - Knowledge, Theory of : China : Early works to 1800. KW - China : Intellectual life : To 221 B.C. KW - China : Intellectual life : 221 B.C.-960 A.D. KW - Technology : China : History : To 1500. KW - Technologie : Chine : Ouvrages avant 1800. KW - Chine : Vie intellectuelle : Jusqu'à 221 av. J.-C. KW - Chine : Vie intellectuelle : 221 av. J.-C.-960. KW - Théorie de la connaissance : Chine : Ouvrages avant 1800. KW - HISTORY / Asia / China. KW - Intellectual life KW - Knowledge, Theory of KW - Technology KW - China KW - To 1500 KW - Early works KW - History ER -