The Han dynasty saw a boom in historical and philosophical writings. Sima Qian's Shiji and Ban Gu's Hanshu set the standard for Chinese historiography, covering vast swaths of history and establishing lasting formats for future works.

On the philosophy front, the Huainanzi blended different schools of thought, while Dong Zhongshu's Chunqiu fanlu cemented Confucianism as the state ideology. These works shaped Chinese intellectual traditions for centuries to come.

Historical Records

Sima Qian and the Shiji

• Sima Qian (c. 145-86 BCE) was a Chinese historian of the early Han dynasty who is considered the father of Chinese historiography
• He authored the monumental work Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian), which covers the history of China from the mythical Yellow Emperor to Sima Qian's own time
• The Shiji consists of 130 chapters and employs various literary forms, including biographies, treatises, and historical narratives
• It established the model for the standard format of dynastic histories, which was followed by later Chinese historians for more than 2,000 years

Ban Gu and the Hanshu

• Ban Gu (32-92 CE) was a Chinese historian and poet best known for his work on the Hanshu (Book of Han), an official history of the Western Han dynasty (206 BCE-25 CE)
• The Hanshu, which was completed by his sister Ban Zhao after Ban Gu's death, consists of 100 chapters and follows the format established by Sima Qian's Shiji
• It provides a detailed account of the Western Han period, including its politics, economy, culture, and foreign relations
• The Hanshu is considered one of the earliest and most important works in the Chinese historiographical tradition (Twenty-Four Histories)

Philosophical Writings

Huainanzi and Syncretic Philosophy

• The Huainanzi is a 2nd-century BCE Chinese philosophical text that combines ideas from various schools of thought, including Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism
• It was compiled under the patronage of Liu An, the Prince of Huainan, and is known for its syncretic approach to philosophy
• The text covers a wide range of topics, such as cosmology, politics, ethics, and self-cultivation
• The Huainanzi reflects the intellectual climate of the early Han period, which was characterized by a trend towards the synthesis and harmonization of different philosophical traditions

Dong Zhongshu and the Chunqiu fanlu

• Dong Zhongshu (c. 179-104 BCE) was a prominent Han dynasty Confucian scholar who played a key role in the establishment of Confucianism as the official ideology of the Chinese state
• He is best known for his work Chunqiu fanlu (Luxuriant Dew of the Spring and Autumn Annals), a collection of essays that interpret the Confucian classic Spring and Autumn Annals
• In the Chunqiu fanlu, Dong Zhongshu argues for the supremacy of Confucian values and the importance of aligning human society with the cosmic order (tianren heyi)
• His ideas, which blend Confucian ethics with cosmological theories, had a significant influence on the development of Han Confucianism and Chinese political thought

Confucian Schools

New Text and Old Text Schools

• During the Han dynasty, two major schools of Confucian thought emerged: the New Text school and the Old Text school
• The New Text school, associated with Dong Zhongshu, based its teachings on versions of the Confucian classics written in the clerical script that was adopted during the Qin dynasty (221-206 BCE)
• The Old Text school, which gained prominence later in the Han period, relied on versions of the classics written in the pre-Qin script and claimed to represent a more authentic tradition
• The two schools differed in their interpretations of the Confucian texts and their views on the relationship between human society and the cosmic order (New Text emphasized cosmological correspondences, while Old Text focused on textual scholarship)
• The debates between the New Text and Old Text schools contributed to the development of Confucian thought and shaped the intellectual landscape of the Han dynasty