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The ''Book of Sui'' (''Suí Shū'') is the official history of the
Sui dynasty The Sui dynasty (, ) was a short-lived imperial dynasty of China that lasted from 581 to 618. The Sui unified the Northern and Southern dynasties, thus ending the long period of division following the fall of the Western Jin dynasty, and layi ...
. It ranks among the official
Twenty-Four Histories The ''Twenty-Four Histories'' (), also known as the ''Orthodox Histories'' (), are the Chinese official dynastic histories covering from the earliest dynasty in 3000 BC to the Ming dynasty in the 17th century. The Han dynasty official Sima Qian ...
of imperial China. It was written by
Yan Shigu Yan Shigu () (581–645), formal name Yan Zhou (), but went by the courtesy name of Shigu, was a famous Chinese historian, linguist, politician, and writer of the Tang Dynasty. Biography Yan was born in Wannian (, in modern Xi'an, Shaanxi). His an ...
, Kong Yingda, and Zhangsun Wuji, with Wei Zheng as the lead author. In the third year of Zhenguan of the Tang dynasty (629), Emperor Taizong of Tang ordered
Fang Xuanling Fang Qiao (; 579 – 18 August 648), courtesy name Xuanling, better known as Fang Xuanling, posthumously known as Duke Wenzhao of Liang, was a Chinese statesman and writer who served as a chancellor under Emperor Taizong in the early Tang dynas ...
to supervise the completion of the Book of Sui, which was being compiled around the same time as other official histories were being written. The Book of Sui was completed in 636 AD, the same year as the '' Book of Chen'' was completed.


Contents

The format used in the text follows the composite historical biography format (斷代紀傳體) established by
Ban Gu Ban Gu (AD32–92) was a Chinese historian, politician, and poet best known for his part in compiling the ''Book of Han'', the second of China's 24 dynastic histories. He also wrote a number of '' fu'', a major literary form, part prose ...
in the ''
Book of the Later Han The ''Book of the Later Han'', also known as the ''History of the Later Han'' and by its Chinese name ''Hou Hanshu'' (), is one of the Twenty-Four Histories and covers the history of the Han dynasty from 6 to 189 CE, a period known as the Later ...
'' with three sections: annals (紀), treatises (志), and biographies (傳). The extensive set of 30 treatises, sometimes translated as "monographs", in the ''Book of Sui'' was completed by a separate set of authors and added in 656 – 20 years after the original text was completed. The treatises cover the Liang, Chen, Northern Qi, and Northern Zhou dynasties in addition to the Sui. In addition to the '' Book of Liang'' and '' Book of Chen'', the Book of Sui is an essential source of information on the subjects covered for those dynasties. The treatises on classics (經籍) are especially important because the ''Book of Sui'' is the only standard history including such a section since the '' Book of Han'' and contains essential bibliographical information for the period from the
Later Han Later Han (後漢) may refer to two dynastic states in imperial China: *Eastern Han (25–220), the second period of the Han dynasty, also called Later Han * Later Han (947–951), a dynasty during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period See al ...
(25–220) to the Sui dynasty. The treatises were initially circulated as a separate set titled "Treatises of the History of the Five Dynasties" (五代史志).


Annals (帝紀)


Treatises (志)


Biographies (列傳)


References


Citations


Sources

; Works cited * *


External links


''Book of Sui'' 《隋書》
Chinese text with matching English vocabulary 7th-century history books History books about the Sui dynasty Tang dynasty literature Twenty-Four Histories 7th-century Chinese books {{China-hist-book-stub