《世本》成书年代问题考论

An Investigation on the Compilation Time of Shiben(世本)

《世本》一书的成书年代问题,在战国史学史与历史文献学研究上十分重要。据司马迁未见及此书和对刘向整编图书工作的考析,盖为西汉季年刘向汇编战国时诸多零散文献而成书,先秦时期并无此书存在。但学界多将其定位先秦史籍,谬说流播已久,乃至误以为《史记》仿其体例,误指《世本》为第一部分类编纂的通史著述云云,造成极大学术混乱,应当予以纠正。误判《世本》为先秦史籍的学术教训,表明在中国史学史的研究中,必须尽力重新审视具体的史籍和史学现象,不能现成地借用旧有成说。

The issue of the compilation time of Shiben（世本）is very important for the study of historiography and historical philology of the Warring States period.The authors argue that Shiben didn’t exist in the pre-Qin period since Sima Qian（司马迁）did not read this book and it was Liu Xiang（刘向）who compiled it in the end of Western Han Dynasty.Most scholars regarded Shiben as historical records of pre-Qin period for a long time,and there is even a misconception that Shiji（史记,Records of the Grand Historian）imitated the style of Shiben.All of this brought confusions in the academia and ought to be corrected.We need to reexamine the specific historical records and historical phenomenon to get the truth and should not borrow accepted theory completely in the study of Chinese historiography.