Travel to China

Sources of Chinese Tradition, Vol. 1

Format: Paperback
Author: William Theodore De Bary
ReleaseDate: 15 March, 2000
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Rating:

Sources of Chines Tradition, Vol 2
It is a great help for any college student or proffessor interested in the Chinese Culture. This book is excellent for anyone wanting to read primary source information. I highly recommend this to any one who is interested in Chinese history.

Excellent resource!
There is very little input on the part of the editors and I, personally, was very thankful this. This book gets the majority of its bulk from direct translations of actual Chinese texts, and as such it is an indespensible tool for any student interested in Chinese religions and philosohpies. It can be dreadfully difficult trying to find sources that aren't mired in thousands of pages of theory and speculation, and sometimes a person just needs the root text! An awesome book.

Ancient Chinese History: Vol. 1
The readings are organized into chapters related to various stages in Chinese history. This book is a collection of readings dealing with ancient Chinese history, especially focusing on philosophy and religion. Early chapters cover antiquity, Confucius, Mo Tzu, and Taoism. Then comes Confucian tradition, the Legalists, the Imperial Order, the Universal Order, and the Economic Order. This is followed by the Great Han Historians, Neo-Taoism, and Buddhism. This volume is rounded out with the Confucian revival and neo-Confucianism. Each chapter begins with a short introduction essay that introduces the context and events of the time and goes to a selection of original texts on the topic at hand. At the beginning of the book is a chronological table of Chinese history from 2852 BC to 1849 AD that highlights various events in Chinese political philosophy.

This book is a great resource for the serious student of Chinese philosophy and culture. The essays and readings provide a unique window into Chinese thought. The authors assume that the reader will have a basic familiarity with the overall picture of Chinese history, and provide many details and insights into why history took the course that it did. I found the reading selections, drawn from such documents as the Analects of Confucius or historical documents like Ma tuan-Lin's Introduction to the Survey on the Land Tax, particularly illuminating. To find so many documents such as these presented in English, together with essays that explain their context and importance, is invaluable for the serious Asian studies scholar.

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