What is Historical Writing?

Not really knowing the true meaning of historical writing, I shall present you with my own opinion on what it is. Historical Writing, in my humble opinion is a recollection of a historical event, described in a detailed and explanatory way. This means that the writer must be both precise in their choice of details on the subject they are writing on and also must have a background description of why the event they are describing had occurred in the first place. However, the writing may not be written in detail only if it is thorough, covering all the important points, and as said before, stating the background info as to why these events ended up occurring.

The Hou Hanshu is regarded as historical writing, and in a sense, this is true, as it was written way back in the 5th century, but can it be considered a true historical writing under the criteria I gave for what a historical writing is? Honestly, I have to say no.

The Hou hanshu, while it was WRITTEN in the past, is far too jerky and reads kind of like a shopping list of events, where the happenings are just 'things' and didn't really happen, didn't really involve real people, and never fully gave the details of the events. Point form documentation. It seemed to only focus on numbers of people, the distances places were from one another and how kings and lords betrayed each other, which usually ended in a beheading.

For it to be a true historical writing, more depth could have been gone into. Such as what the people were going through because of some of these kings, and the writer could have sounded like he actually cared about what he was writing, instead of it seeming like something that could have been thrown together in half an hour.

The ethnographic descriptions. That's the word I was looking for, and forgot to mention it before now. These were what made me feel so disconnected with the writing. I felt like it was more like a math text then a historical one, and I found myself not caring at all about what was being said, as the author didn't seem to care either. I know I am repeating myself here, but it is very true. If you are going to write something, especially something about your past, one should put more care and detail into it, in order to provoke more understanding about what it was really like to those readers of the future.