Ban Gu's History of Early China.

Brown, Miranda

Ban Gu's History of Early China. BY ANTHONY E. CLARK. Amherst, New York: CAMBRIA PRESS, 2008. Pp. xix + 302, figs. $109.95.

As the "other" Han historian, Ban Gu has received less attention than his more famous Western Han counterpart, Sima Qian. In part, the reasons for this relative inattention are clear. Ban Gu undoubtedly had less personal appeal than Sima Qian, who is surrounded by a body of romantic mythology. In addition, Ban's History of the Han (Hanshu), which is narrower in temporal and thematic scope, lacks the flair and pathos of Sima's Historical Record (Shiji). Yet Ban Gu is arguably as important as Sima Qian in the historiographical tradition, for Ban's work set the pattern for the writing of imperial histories over the next two millennia. And Ban continues to be our best and most complete source for the Western Han period. For these reasons, Andrew E. Clark's new study is a welcome addition to a growing body of literature on the Han.

Clark's major accomplishments are twofold. First, he provides a definitive reading of a central but overlooked figure and text. As such, his book should be read as a complement to a handful of important studies on the historiographical traditions of early China, including but not limited to Stephen Durrant's Cloudy Mirror (1995), David Schaberg's Patterned Past (2001), and Li Wai-yee's Readability of the Past in Early Chinese Historiography (2008). Second, as with these more recent works, Clark moves away from tired questions about the reliability of our sources. Instead, he gives us a dynamic reading of the Hanshu, which he treats not as a conveyor of raw data but as an object to be analyzed in terms of what it did--what it did for Ban Gu and his clan, as well as for Han rulers and the imperial state. In short, Clark sees the writing of history not as a transcription of social realities but as a performance.

The study falls into five chapters, each of which takes a different perspective on the Hanshu. Chapter 1, "Inscribing the Past," provides a brief introduction to the work and situates Ban's mode of writing within a larger context of political criticism. Chapter 2, "Inscribing the Text," recounts the textual history of Hanshu and deals with subjects such as Qing criticism of the work, sources, chronology, and accretions. Chapter 3, "Inscribing the Family," moves the study in new directions, shifting away from more traditional modes of philological criticism. Through an analysis of Ban's treatment of his own ancestors, Clark shows that the history of the Western Han figured in the efforts by Ban Gu to bolster the standing of his own clan at court--and more pointedly, to conceal the true sources of the clan's power and standing. As Clark aptly points out, the Bans' rise to power owed less to the virtues and talents of Ban males than to the success of Ban females in the imperial harem. This chapter thus provides a splendid illustration of how the personal agendas of the Han historians shaped the content of the sources we continue to use. Chapter 4, "Inscribing the Self," reviews Ban Gu's personal stake in the Han restoration of 25 C.E. In particular, Clark attempts here to reconcile Ban's unflattering and candid account of the late Western Han with his support of the Han restoration. Through his presentation of events, Ban Gu suggested that the Liu mandate was secure despite the personal failings of the late Western Han emperors. By decoupling the mandate from the personal qualities of emperors, Ban opened a space in which historians and ministers could admonish rulers without risking charges of treason. Seen from this perspective, Ban Gu's presentation of events can be regarded as a "sensible maneuver to secure his favor" in the early Eastern Han court (p. 96). The final chapter, "Inscribing the State," brings the book to a memorable close. Clark sets Ban's views on the Heavenly mandate, which he introduced in the previous chapter, against earlier views. He argues that the Bans did not conceive of the Heavenly mandate as contingent upon the virtue of the ruler. Instead, Ban proposed that the Lius' custodianship of the Mandate reflected fate--and, more surprisingly still, the permanence of the Liu mandate.

As I found the arguments of chapter 5 particularly significant, I should like to call special attention to them. Clark's reading of Ban Gu's interpretation of the Mandate of Heaven promises to challenge one of the oldest assumptions about Chinese political culture on two fronts. First, most conventional accounts of the Mandate treat it as a single doctrine, one that tied the dynasty's political legitimacy to the merit of the ruler. The classic exposition of such a theory, of course, is to be found in the Mencius, a text cited by Chinese nationalists and American sinophiles as evidence of the enlightened quality of Chinese political culture. Second, most treatments regard the Mandate of Heaven as virtually unchanged and unchallenged between the Western Zhou and the twentieth century. (Indeed, recent scholars, especially those of the New Confucian bent of mind, like to point out the Mandate of Heaven lives on in contemporary China.) But Clark's reading shows us the shallowness of the standard view. The notion that the mandate was contingent on merit was far from a foregone conclusion in early China. Voices close to the throne in fact provided powerful alternative visions, visions that were more congenial to dynastic rulers. Still more surprisingly, we see that the notion of a permanent mandate proved useful to dynastic chroniclers, as it allowed them freedom in their presentation of rulers. In this regard, I would argue that Ban Gu was hardly the first to recognize this, nor was he unique. A careful reading of the Mencius and a contemporary bronze vessel found at Zhongshan reveals that the "standard" view of the Mandate of Heaven was quite controversial in the Warring States period. It is thus unclear to me if there ever was a standard view of the Mandate among the literate or the politically engaged, in early China or in later periods.

Indeed, if I were to quibble with Clark's study, it would be on the grounds that he does not give us enough of a sustained critique of the conventional view. A fuller exposition of the problem, of course, might have taken him far from the well-defined scope of his study. Yet such an approach might have also forced him to reconsider his framework, which relies upon notions of Confucianism and Confucian orthodoxy. No doubt, some scholars will question his reliance on such a framework. Over the last decade, historians have questioned the value of labeling thinkers and texts in the Han as "Confucian" or "orthodox," arguing that such labels explain little about the complexities of political and intellectual life. These quibbles aside, the manifest virtues of Clark's work are clear. It provides us with a sophisticated approach to the study of ancient history. In addition, it has shown us a far more nuanced and varied political landscape than we normally see. In these ways, he has paved the way for future studies of Chinese political culture and historiography, and for this we are indebted to him.

MIRANDA BROWN

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN