"Sarah M. Allen, Shifting Stories: History, Gossip, and Lore in Narratives from Tang Dynasty China. Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Asia Center, 2014" (original) (raw)

One of the bedrocks of Chinese historical thinking is that small events engender huge consequences. Rather than just being ghost stories of the supernatural (whatever that means in a this-worldly culture), narratives from Tang 唐 China (618-907) often have an existentialist core, in that minor decisions do not only influence an individual's life but the whole course of history. Such stories often did not enter the official historical record, though, but were preserved in private collections. It is in this vein that Sarah