Introduction
Academician Kan Lao (courtesy name Zhenyi, 1907–2003), a title which he earned in 1958, began working at the IHP in 1932 after graduating from the Department of History at Peking University in 1930. Lao’s research specialty centered on the history of Han political systems, which he used as a basis to extrapolate to ancient times, the Wei and Jin dynasties, as well as the period of the Northern and Southern dynasties. His more representative works include History of the Qin and Han Dynasties, History of the Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties, Documents of the Han Dynasty on Wooden Slips from Edsin Gol [sic] Part 2: Transliterations and Commentaries, and Investigation of Han Dynasty Systems and Institutions. After entering the IHP, Lao spent a significant portion of his career working on the Han dynasty wooden slips excavated at Edsen-gol, gaining him the admiration of IHP Research Fellow I-tien Hsing: “The cataloguing and interpretations of the Han wooden slips from Edsen-gol were first published by Kan Lao, and his textual research and treatises have opened the way for subsequent research.”
Lao’s archival materials include the recordings of six of his lectures, edited manuscripts of his Documents of the Han Dynasty on Wooden Slips from Edsin Gol [sic], poetic prose, review comments, reading and research notes, and correspondences, among others. In 2023, the Archives received authorization from his family to make two of his lectures available to the public, to which you are invited to have a listen: “Significance and Meanings of Han Wooden Slips” (1961, in Chinese) and “Han Politics from the Perspective of Confucianism” (1976, in Chinese).
Lao’s archival materials include the recordings of six of his lectures, edited manuscripts of his Documents of the Han Dynasty on Wooden Slips from Edsin Gol [sic], poetic prose, review comments, reading and research notes, and correspondences, among others. In 2023, the Archives received authorization from his family to make two of his lectures available to the public, to which you are invited to have a listen: “Significance and Meanings of Han Wooden Slips” (1961, in Chinese) and “Han Politics from the Perspective of Confucianism” (1976, in Chinese).