Excluding the contemporary ''[[Fudoki]]'', the ''Nihon Shoki'' is coupled with the ''[[Kojiki]]'' as the first two domestic, Japanese histories. Officially finished in [[720]] CE, the ''Nihon Shoki'' had been in progress for almost fifty years.
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Excluding the contemporary ''[[Fudoki]]'', the ''Nihon Shoki'' is coupled with the ''[[Kojiki]]'' as the first two domestic, Japanese histories. Officially finished in [[720]] CE, the ''Nihon Shoki'' had been in progress for almost fifty years. Its compilation was inspired in part by the [[Confucianism|Confucian]] notion of producing annals of each regime, which could then be used to guide later generations.<ref>[[Conrad Totman]], ''Early Modern Japan'', University of California Press (1993), 25.</ref>