In the latter half of the first century A.D. a Chinese scholar picked up his brush and began to compile historical records. A political indiscretion prematurely terminated his labors, but he gave twenty years of his life to the task. The result of his work is one of a group of compilations that constitute part of the world's most remarkable historical literature. The scholar was Pan Ku (32–92 A.D.), and the work that consumed much of his life is known as the Han shu, i.e., Han documents, or Documents of the [former] Han dynasty.