Making Moral Decisions: Zhu Xi’s ‘Outline and Details of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government’

After its first publication in 1219, the Zizhi tongjian gangmu 資治通鑑 綱目 [Outline and Details of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government; henceforth Outline and Details], a collaborative historical compilation by Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200) and his students, became one of the most popular and influential works in Chinese history. Its influence extended beyond China to both Japan and Korea.1 Even in Europe, thanks to J. A. M. de Moyriac de Maille’s translation of the work under the title Histoire Generale de la Chine, ou Annales de cet Empire, the Outline and Details was also enormously influential in shaping European understanding of Chinese history, until Otto Franke demonstrated its shortcomings in his “Das Tsě tschi t’ung kien und das T’ung kien kang mu ihr Wesen, ihr Verhältnis zueinander und ihr Quellenwert” in 1930.2