It was the same spirit as this that ran through the imperial historian's Historical Records, with its declared objective of examining the reasons for the rise and fall of previous kingdoms, and also the History of the Former Han Dynasty, written in the early years of the Eastern Han dynasty (25--220 AD) by the father and son Ban Biao and Ban Gu.
包括西漢中期太史公作《史記》，目的也在「稽其成敗興壞之理」，一路跨越千禧年，延續至東漢初年班彪、班固父子寫《漢書》，秉持的亦是同樣的精神。