Mark Twain once derided the Book of Mormon as "chloroform in print." Long and complicated, written in the language of the King James version of the Bible, it boggles the minds of many. Yet it is unquestionably one of the most influential books ever written. With over 140 million copies in print, it [...]
Sima Qian (c. 100 B.C.E.) was China's first historian -- he was known as Grand Astrologer at the court of Emperor Wu during the Han dynasty -- and, along with Confucius and the First Emperor of Qin, was one of the creators of imperial China. His Shiji (published for Columbia in a translation by Bur[...]