STEELE REPLIES: The authors have missed the point of my criticism. In part precisely because the book is aimed toward astronomers, more extensive translations (where possible) and more contextual discussion would have been desirable. In translating only those parts of the original texts that apparently record observations, the authors have omitted astrological and other details that may accompany the record. Sometimes the accompanying information provides additional clarification of the observational account.
The modern scholar needs to understand the contextual background of a record—whether it comes from a collection of portents or is used to test a calendar system, for example—to be able to use it in modern scientific studies. The dynastic histories are not just a collection for us to pillage for astronomical observations, but complex sources reflecting the compiler’s aims that go far beyond the cataloguing of observations.
The authors also seem compelled to defend the verifiable historicity of all early Chinese astronomical records, despite compelling evidence to the contrary. For example, many Han records of solar eclipses do not relate to eclipses that could have been seen in China. They were either predicted in some way or “faked.”
Only a fairly small percentage of those eclipses that could have been seen—and those that might have been predicted—are recorded in the dynastic histories. As Wolfram Eberhard, Hans Bielenstein, and others have shown, there is a clear correlation between reports of a relatively high proportion of observable eclipses and the reign of an unpopular emperor. The only conclusion that can be drawn from this is that the astronomical records in the dynastic histories have been manipulated for nonastronomical (I believe political) reasons.
It is pointless to try to defend the historicity of all early Chinese astronomical records. That is the wrong question to ask. In its historical context, the manipulation of the astronomical record as written in the dynastic histories was perfectly acceptable. We should investigate it to try to understand why it was done, not pass judgment as if the histories were simply an observer’s logbook from which we want to decide whether the observer was good or bad.
