The Records of the Historian was written by Sima Qian (145-90 BC), a great historian of the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-25 AD) who dedicated his whole life to the book. China"s first historical work centering on people rather than events, it presents a general Chinese history of some 3,000 years, from the legendary Yellow Emperor to 122 BC - the first year of the Yuanshou reign of Han Emperor Wu.