Chinese History and Culture

Ying-shih Yu is a preeminent historian of China. Awarded the John W. Kluge Prize for achievement in the Study of Humanity and the inaugural Tang Prize International Award in Sinology, he has published more than thirty books and five hundred articles and essays on Chinese history, thought, politics, and culture. His most recent works include Lun tian ren zhi ji (Between Heaven and the Human: An Exploration of the Origin of Ancient Chinese Thought, 2014), Zhu Xi de lishi shijie (The Historical World of Zhu Xi: A Study of the Political Culture of Song Intellectuals, 2003, 2011), and Shi yu Zhongguo wenhua (Chinese Intellectuals and Chinese Culture, 2003, 2010, and 2013). Josephine Chiu-Duke is associate professor of Chinese intellectual history in the Asian Studies Department at the University of British Columbia. She is the author of To Rebuild the Empire: Lu Chih's Confucian Pragmatist Approach to the Mid-T'ang Predicament (2000), editor of Liberalism and the Humanistic Tradition-Essays in Honor of Professor Lin Yu-sheng (2005), and co-translator of Ge Zhaoguang's An Intellectual History of China, Volume 1: Knowledge, Thought, and Belief Before the Seventh Century C.E. (2014). Michael S. Duke is professor emeritus of Chinese and comparative literature at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of several books on modern and traditional Chinese literature, including Blooming and Contending: Chinese Literature in the Post-Mao Era (1985), translator of Koonchung Chan's The Fat Year (2011), and co-translator of Ge Zhaoguang's An Intellectual History of China, Volume 1 (2014).

• Author's Preface Editorial Note List of Abbreviations Chronology of Dynasties 1. Between the Heavenly and the Human 2. Life and Immortality in the Mind of Han China 3. "O Soul, Come Back!" A Study in the Changing Conceptions of the Soul and Afterlife in Pre-Buddhist China 4. New Evidence on the Early Chinese Conception of Afterlife 5. Food in Chinese Culture: The Han Period 6. The Seating Order at the Hong Men Banquet 7. Individualism and the Neo-Daoist Movement in Wei-Jin China 8. Intellectual Breakthroughs in the Tang-Song Transition 9. Morality and Knowledge in Zhu Xi's Philosophical System 10. Confucian Ethics and Capitalism 11. Business Culture and Chinese Traditions-Toward a Study of the Evolution of Merchant Culture in Chinese History 12. Reorientation of Confucian Social Thought in the Age of Wang Yangming 13. The Intellectual World of Jiao Hong Revisited 14. Toward an Interpretation of Intellectual Transition in the Seventeenth Century Acknowledgments Appendix. The John W. Kluge Prize Address and The Tang Prize for Sinology Acceptance Speech Index

Very few people can, as Ying-shih Yu has done, so thoroughly contribute to the study of China, whether ancient times or modern times, intellectual history, social history, cultural history, or any other number of disciplines. Despite the numerous topics, Yu's essays manage to be incredibly rich, groundbreaking, and enlightening. This truly is a superb collection of his most important scholarly works in the English language. -- Ge Zhaoguang, author of An Intellectual History of China: Knowledge, Thought, and Belief Before the Seventh Century C.E. The breadth and depth of knowledge presented in this collection of Ying-shih Yu essays and lectures is a treasure trove for readers interested in Chinese history. The topics range from early ideas about immortality to later ideas about the social standing of men of business. No other publication in English compares in terms of command of traditional Chinese sources and sensitivity to contemporary historiographical issues, all mobilized in the service of better understanding China's past in relation to China's present. -- Willard Peterson, Gordon Wu '58 Professor of Chinese Studies, Princeton University This anthology compiles Ying-shih Yu's many years of research on Chinese history and culture and features the most important topics and turning points in Chinese history. Yu's English publications and texts are the highlights and summaries of his best work in Chinese, and this book will allow scholars from the English-speaking world firsthand access to Yu's many accomplishments and open myriads of dialogue. -- Chin-shing Huang, Academia Sinica (Taipei) Highly recommended. CHOICE