資治通鑑
Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance (Zizhi Tongjian)
Sima Guang 司馬光 · 1019 – 1086
Librarian’s score9.3Claude · AI
Readers—Shown after five ratings
Sima Guang and his collaborators spent nineteen years turning 1,362 years of history, from 403 BCE to 959 CE, into one year-by-year narrative of 294 chapters. A separate thirty-chapter examination of discrepancies records how conflicting sources were weighed. Written to counsel rulers, it is clear, judicious and immensely readable, and for centuries it was the general history most Chinese readers actually knew.