It was the 19th-century English historian E.A. Freeman who observed that "history is past politics, and politics is present history." This statement was considered so extraordinary that it is found listed in collections of great quotations -- which is where I found it.
In China, and much earlier, however, such an observation would have seemed obvious, not only to Chinese historians but also to all those whom they were writing about. It was quite apparent that historians should appropriate the past, with all of its events and personages, for ethical and political edification.
Since antiquity, write the authors of this scholarly and serious book, "writing history has been the quintessential Chinese way of defining and shaping culture." Indeed, Etienne Balazs, contemporary historian of China, has gone so far as to say that Chinese history is "written by officials for officials."
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