Official history

An official history is a work of history which is sponsored, authorised or endorsed by its subject. The term is most commonly used for histories which are produced for a government. The term also applies to commissions from non-state bodies including histories of commercial companies. An official biography (one written with the permission, cooperation and sometimes the participation of its subject or heirs) is an authorised biography. Official histories frequently have the advantage that the author has had access to archives, been allowed to interview subjects and use other primary sources closed to independent historians. Because of the close relationship between author and subject, such works may be (or be perceived to be) partisan in tone and to lack historical objectivity. Such bias varies and some official histories have been called exercises in propaganda; in other cases the authors have retained a measure of independence. There is a tradition of history written or published under official patronage; Polydore Vergil wrote the Anglica Historia (drafted by 1513 and published in 1534), a history of England, at the request of King Henry VII (1485-1509); William Camden's Annales Rerum Gestarum Angliae et Hiberniae Regnate Elizabetha (1615–1627), recounts the history of the reign of Elizabeth I of England (1558–1603). In early-modern Europe, royal courts appointed official historians, including the Kongelig historiograf (Historiographer Royal) in the kingdom of Denmark–Norway from 1594, the Rikshistoriograf in Sweden from 1618, the Historiographer Royal in England from 1660 and the Historiographer Royal in Scotland from 1681. Each book in the Twenty-Four Histories records the official history of a Chinese dynasty. Sixteen of the histories were written between the 7th and 15th centuries. The first is Records of the Grand Historian, authored by Sima Qian (145–86 BCE) in the Han dynasty and the last is History of Ming (completed in the 1730s). From the Tang dynasty (618–907) a government office for historiography compiled official histories.