Other Records of Note

Among all the subjects this treatise must address, the present one affords the most genuine pleasure, for we arrive now at books and histories. Your Grace will find that I have opinions on these matters, and that I have not suppressed them, since a guide that does not guide is merely a list.

There are two bodies of history that Your Grace must have in hand before the rest of this treatise becomes fully useful. The first concerns Samarskand and the ancient world — the foundations and romanticizations of the present-day Empire. The second is the history of Singhapura, its growth and its mistakes. I have endevoured to address both here, drawn from the Seven Great Classics with such commentary as serves comprehension.

On the subject of the Classics: Your Grace should read them. My recommendations here do not concern literary merit, though some have it. These works permeate the Singhapura political system so thoroughly that a ruler who cannot quote them, reply to them, or recognize when they are being cited is at a disadvantage in almost every formal context she will encounter. Among Singhapura’s nobility, facility with the Classics is considered a mark of distinction; the inability to demonstrate it, a mark of deficiency. Students and noble families hold regular contests of quotation and call-and-reply. These in turn are cited in courts of law and in significant political arguments. The Classics function, in other words, as a shared language among those with power; a ruler who does not speak that language fluently will find herself at the mercy of those who do. The history of Singhapura contained in this treatise draws from the Classics and should supply the necessary facts, but facts alone will not serve.

The Modern Classics are included for two reasons. The first is that they are works of truth. They are willing to reveal their respective worlds more clearly than the official writ, and have in several cases paid for that understanding with suppression, exile, and the like. The second, which Your Grace may find more immediately useful, is that they are considerably more interesting than the works that precede them in this section. A reader drawn in by interest remembers more than one who reads from obligation. If the Modern Classics serve as the door through which Your Grace the Seven Great Classics, they will have done their work.

Finally, I have included a section on banned books. It is small; but what people fear tells you more about them than what they celebrate, and Singhapura’s list of prohibited texts is, read correctly, a telling portrait of its fears. Your Grace would do well to see if these texts can be acquired.