The Han dynasty official Sima Qian established many of the conventions of the genre, but the form was not fixed until much later. Starting with the Tang dynasty, each dynasty established an official office to write the history of its predecessor using official court records, partly in order to establish its own link to the earliest times. As fixed and edited in the Qing dynasty, the whole set contains 3,213 volumes and about 40 million words. It is considered one of the most important sources on Chinese history and culture.[1]
The title "Twenty-Four Histories" dates from 1775, which was the 40th year in the reign of the Qianlong Emperor. This was when the last volume, the History of Ming, was reworked and a complete set of the histories was produced.
There were attempts at producing new traditional histories after the fall of the Qing dynasty, but they either never gained widespread acceptance as part of the official historical canon or they remain unfinished.
In 1961, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the declaration of the Republic of China (ROC), the ROC government in Taiwan published the History of Qing, adding 21 supplementary chapters to the Draft History of Qing and revising many existing chapters to denounce the People's Republic of China (PRC) as an illegitimate, impostor regime. It also removed passages that were derogatory towards the Xinhai Revolution.[4] This edition has not been widely accepted as the official Qing history because it is recognized that it was a rushed job motivated by political objectives. It does not correct most of the errors known to exist in the Draft History of Qing.[5]
An additional project, attempting to write a New History of Qing incorporating new materials and improvements in historiography, lasted from 1988 to 2000. Only 33 chapters out of the projected 500 were published.[5] This project was later abandoned following the rise of the Taiwanese nationalist Pan-Green Coalition, which argues that it is not the duty of Taiwan to compile the history of mainland China.
In 1961, the PRC also attempted to complete the Qing history, but historians were prevented from doing so against the backdrop of the Cultural Revolution.[6]
In 2002, the PRC once again announced that it would complete the History of Qing.[7]The project was approved in 2002,[8] and put under the leadership of historian Dai Yi.[9] Initially planned to be completed in 10 years,[10] the project suffered multiple delays, pushing completion of the first draft to 2016.[11]Chinese Social Sciences Today reported in April 2020 that the project's results were being reviewed.[12] However, in 2023, the manuscript was reportedly rejected,[13] and there are also rumors that the project has been indefinitely halted.[14]
In China, the Zhonghua Book Company (Zhonghua Shuju) have edited a number of these histories. They have been collated, edited, and punctuated by Chinese specialists.[15]
One of the Twenty-Four Histories is in the process of being fully translated into English: Records of the Grand Historian by William Nienhauser, in nine volumes.[17]
In Korean and Vietnamese, only the Records has been translated. Most of the histories have been translated into Japanese.[citation needed]
^Ch 49, "Standard Histories," in Endymion Wilkinson. Chinese History: A New Manual. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, Harvard-Yenching Institute Monograph Series, 2012). ISBN9780674067158. Also see "Standard Histories" link to the Googlebook of the 2000 edition of Wilkinson.
^Hill, John E. (2009) Through the Jade Gate to Rome: A Study of the Silk Routes during the Later Han Dynasty, 1st to 2nd Centuries CE. BookSurge, Charleston, South Carolina. ISBN978-1-4392-2134-1.
^Wilkinson, Endymion (2012). Chinese history: a new manual. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Asia Center. pp. 834–5. ISBN978-0674067158.
^Huáiràng, Yuè (3 April 2019). 新修《清史》已进入稿件通读阶段,预计今年出版问世. Péngpài Xīnwén 澎湃新闻 (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 12 April 2019.
^Mao, Liping; Ma, Zhao (2012). ""Writing History in the Digital Age": The New Qing History Project and the Digitization of Qing Archives". History Compass. 10 (5): 367–374. doi:10.1111/j.1478-0542.2012.00841.x.
^Chéng, Chóngdé (3 January 2021). 戴逸先生与清史纂修前的准备工作. Guangming 光明 (in Chinese).
^"清史編纂紛擾持續 傳未通過中國政審" [Controversy over compilation of Qing history continues, rumored to have failed to pass China’s political review] (in Chinese). Freedom Times. 2023-11-09. Archived from the original on 24 November 2023. Retrieved 2023-11-24.