Inner Asia in Chinese history: An analysis of the Hsiung-nu in the 'Shih chi'

The present thesis is an investigation of the relationship between China and the Inner Asian nomads as presented in the Shih chi of Ssu-ma Ch'ien. In particular, it addresses the questions of how and why the history of the steppe peoples began to be recorded in the Shih chi.; Firstly, I have taken into account the historical information on the Hsiung-nu in order to show the specific features inherent to the presence, for the first time in history, of a nomadic empire along China's northern border. Secondly, I have investigated the intellectual framework--with special regard to astronomical and cosmological theories--that informed, shaped, and directed the historian's work. In this respect I argue that the activity of the historian was divided into a descriptive (or documentary), and a prescriptive (or normative) phase. In the first phase the historical event, or phenomenon, would be accurately recorded by the historian. In the second phase the same phenomenon would be 'rationalized', by making it fit inside the complex system of correspondences that were believed to constitute the connecting tissue between the separate but indivisible spheres of Heaven and Man, and to preserve order in the universe.; Applying this argument to the specific question of the appearance of the nomads in the Shih chi, it is possible to show that the Hsiung-nu became an object of conscious historical investigation in China not only because of their objective relevance, but also, and above all, as a consequence of the deep intellectual changes within China itself, which transformed the role and 'world-vision' of the historian, opening the way to the investigation of phenomena previously ignored or inadequately represented.