Wm. Theodore de Bary is the John Mitchell Mason Professor Emeritus and Provost Emeritus of Columbia University and past president of the Association for Asian Studies. He has written extensively on Asian civilizations and is the coeditor of Sources of East Asian Tradition, Sources of Chinese Tradition, Sources of Japanese Tradition, and Sources of Korean Tradition. In 2014, he was awarded the President's Medal for Distinction in the Humanities.

• Preface Introduction Part 1. Education and the Core Curriculum 1. Education for a World Community 2. "Starting on the Road" with John Erskine & Co. 3. The Great "Civilized" Conversation: A Case in Point 4. A Shared Responsibility to Past and Future 5. Asia in the Core Curriculum 6. What Is "Classic"? 7. Classic Cases in Point Part 2. Liberal Learning in Confucianism 8. Human Renewal and the Repossession of the Way 9. Zhu Xi and Liberal Education 10. Confucian Individualism and Personhood 11. Zhu Xi's Educational Program 12. Self and Society in Ming Thought 13. The Rise of Neo-Confucianism in Korea 14. Confucianism and Human Rights 15. China and the Limits of Liberalism Part 3. Tributes and Memoirs 16. Huang Zongxi and Qian Mu 17. Tang Junyi and New Asia College 18. Ryusaku Tsunoda Sensei 19. Thomas Merton, Matteo Ricci, and Confucianism Appendix. Wm. Theodore de Bary: A Life in Conversation Index

Though it is a collection of previously published articles, it attains a coherence and concentration such collections seldom achieve...[a] rich and rewarding book. -- Robert N. Bellah First Things Perhaps [The Great Civilized Conversation's] most striking feature is the care, and indeed passion, with which core concepts from different epochs of the Confucian educational tradition in East Asia are articulated and interpreted for a wider world community... [A] lifetime of sustained and cumulative effort... is represented in this remarkable volume.Sino Western Journal Sino Western Journal