Sima Qian is not only the first historian in Chinese history, he is also one of the greatest writers that China has ever produced. Today, writers of Kung Fu novels point to Sima Qian's stories on fighters and assassins as the origins of the Kung Fu genre. Chinese business people point to his "Biography of the Capitalists" as the reason why Chinese people today are so good at business. He documents the Chinese colonization of the Yue, who once were an independent nation that straddled the border from Guangzhou to Hanoi.

Today is the start of a series on Sima Qian. The podcast will take a look at Sima Qian the man and the broader context of China's early historiography.