“Ssu-ma Ch'ien's many-volumed history of China established the frame within which Chinese history continued to be written almost to the present day. Ssu-ma Ch'ien accepted and made canonical the theory that each dynasty began with an especially virtuous ruler and then gradually dissipated that virtue until Heaven lost patience and substituted a new dynasty in its place.”

The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community (1963)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Ssu-ma Ch'ien's many-volumed history of China established the frame within which Chinese history continued to be writte…" by William H. McNeill?
William H. McNeill photo
William H. McNeill 43
Canadian historian 1917–2016

Related quotes

Kenneth Minogue photo

“Dynasties rise and fall according to what the Chinese used to call 'the mandate of heaven', but life for the peasant changes little. Everything depends on the wisdom of the ruler.”

Kenneth Minogue (1930–2013) Australian political theorist

Source: Politics: A Very Short Introduction, Chapter 1
Context: In a despotic government, the ultimate principle of order issues from the inclinations of the despot himself. Yet despotism is not a system in which justice is entirely meaningless: it has generally prevailed in highly traditional societies where custom is king and the prevailing terms of justice are accepted as part of the natural order of things. Each person fits into a divinely recognized scheme. Dynasties rise and fall according to what the Chinese used to call 'the mandate of heaven', but life for the peasant changes little. Everything depends on the wisdom of the ruler.

Zhuge Liang photo

“History presents a series of cultural epochs. Each is a span of years within which knowledge presents a more or less unified structure which can be expressed in a classification, but each new epoch requires a new classification.”

Brian Campbell Vickery (1918–2009) British information theorist

Source: Classification and indexing in science (1958), Other Chapters, p. 147 Cited in: Madeline M. Henderson (1966) Cooperation, convertibility, and compatibility among information systems: a literature review. p. 72.

James Tod photo

“If we compare the antiquity and illustrious descent of the dynasties which have ruled, and some which continue to rule, the small sovereignties of Rajasthan, with many of celebrity in Europe, superiority will often attach to the Rajput.”

James Tod (1782–1835) 1782-1835, English officer of the British East India Company and an Oriental scholar

Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan by James Tod

Pearl S.  Buck photo
Peter L. Berger photo
Adrienne Rich photo
Dana Arnold photo
Czeslaw Milosz photo

“The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator
Nicole Oresme photo

Related topics