The Han dynasty official Sima Qian established many of the conventions of the genre, but the form was not fixed until much later.
There were attempts at producing new traditional histories after the fall of the Qing dynasty, but they either never gained widespread acceptance as part of the official historical canon or they remain unfinished.
In 1961, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the declaration of the Republic of China (ROC), the ROC government in Taiwan published the History of Qing, adding 21 supplementary chapters to the Draft History of Qing and revising many existing chapters to denounce the People's Republic of China (PRC) as an illegitimate, impostor regime.
[5] This edition has not been widely accepted as the official Qing history because it is recognized that it was a rushed job motivated by political objectives.
[6] An additional project, attempting to write a New History of Qing incorporating new materials and improvements in historiography, lasted from 1988 to 2000.
[6] This project was later abandoned following the rise of the Taiwanese nationalist Pan-Green Coalition, which argues that it is not the duty of Taiwan to compile the history of mainland China.
In 1961, the PRC also attempted to complete the Qing history, but historians were prevented from doing so against the backdrop of the Cultural Revolution.
[17] One of the Twenty-Four Histories is in the process of being fully translated into English: Records of the Grand Historian by William Nienhauser, in nine volumes.