annals-biographies form; biographical-thematic historiography
A traditional East Asian historical writing style that combines chronological annals with detailed biographies of notable figures. Used especially in reference to Chinese dynastic histories and early Japanese official histories.
The 'Records of the Grand Historian' is a representative work of the annals-biographies form.
The Nihon Shoki is in chronological form, but later histories were written in the annals-biographies form.
国史 refers to national histories, many of which were written in the 紀伝体 style.
From Chinese 紀傳體 (jìzhuàntǐ), literally 'annals-biography form'. The term was adopted into Japanese as 紀伝体 (きでんたい) to describe the historiographical style used in classical Chinese and early Japanese official histories.