Sima Qian is rolling in his grave...

[robot_mel]

Just cataloguing a rather patronising lecture given to the "King's College for Women" in 1909, on "Some remarks on the Reading of History" by a "Right-honorable Sir" which started of quite patronising, in my opinion and then made me want to start hitting things, preferably the author,

...the production of history has been almost entirely the work of Europeans...In Asia there have been annalists, chroniclers and genealogists, mostly Mahomedan, who narrate the wars and exploits of the great conquerors, the succesion of kings and the rise and fall of dynasties. And I believe in China official record of public events and transactions have been kept up from very early agesbut if we measure these Asiatic narratives by the standard of literary merit and the demand for authentication of facts, I fear that they will be found wanting...

If you admit to knowing nothing about what a country produces you REALLY shouldn't be saying it's crap!