左传
The narratives of the "Zuo Zhuan" are highly didactic in nature, and are presented in such a way that they teach and illustrate moral principles. The German Sinologist Martin Kern observed: "Instead of offering authorial judgments or catechistic hermeneutics, the "Zuo Zhuan" lets its moral lessons unfold within the narrative itself, teaching at once history and historical judgment." Unlike the "Histories" of Herodotus or the "History of the Peloponnesian War" of Thucydides, with which it is roughly contemporary, the "Zuo Zhuan"′s narration always remains in the third person perspective, and presents as a dispassionate recorder of facts.