Chinese Books - Page 6

Ch'En Liang on Public Interest and the Law (Monograph of the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy)

Hoyt Cleveland Tillman

Amazon Price: $16.00 List Price: $16.00 Usually ships in 3 to 5 weeks By: University of Hawaii Press Amazon Marketplace: 6 new & used starting at $5.95

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Law -> General
Subjects -> Law -> General AAS
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Philosophy -> Eastern -> Chinese

The Wisdom of Confucius (Modern Library)

Confucius

List Price: $15.95 By: Modern Library Amazon Marketplace: 6 new & used starting at $12.20

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> World Literature -> Chinese
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Philosophy -> Eastern -> Chinese
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Philosophy -> Eastern -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

A "One Book" Survey of Confucius 5 out of 5 stars.
13 of 13 people found this review helpful.

I found this book readable and surprisingly useful. True, the Analects are not complete but have been excerpted. The book cannot present more than a sampling of Confucius' writings for obvious limitations of space. Merits of the book include its readability, with a long, discursive essay and some translations provided by the celebrated scholar Lin Yutang. The book also contains a famous Chinese biography of Confucius, plus a few selections from the writings of Confucius's most influencial disciples-- some of these contemporary with Confucius and some from later times.

I could not help noticing prior reviews that deal harshly with the book. Some of the criticism will not be meaningful to the nonscholarly reader, who, for example, would not be offended that the "original numbering" of the Analects has been abandoned.

Selection of the writings has been most judicious. For example, the book contains "On the Great Learning," and "On Education." To obtain all these well-chosen sample writings of Confucius in individual editions rather than an anthology such as this would require an entire shelf of books.

This readable, clean edition will be excellent for the thoughtful person who wants to explore across the breadth of Confucius's thought. And despite biting criticism in the other reviews, I found Professor Lin's discussions of Confucius's life, thought, and cultural impact to be most helpful.

The book is also a handsome little volume, and with a quality binding. One is proud to place it in one's library.

The Analects of Confucius : A Philosophical Translation (Classics of Ancient China)

Roger T. Ames

List Price: $27.00 By: Ballantine Books Amazon Marketplace: 3 new & used starting at $12.58

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Ancient -> China
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> China -> General
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> China -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

There are more translations of Confucius' Analects than you can shake a stick at, but until now none have plumbed the depths of Confucius' thinking with such a keen sensitivity to philosophical and linguistic underpinnings. Following up on his groundbreaking work with David Hall in Thinking Through Confucius, Roger Ames has teamed up with Henry Rosemont to put theory into practice, portraying Confucius in light of his communitarian leanings. In a translation that comes off as surprisingly relaxed and colloquial, gone are the adherence to strict rules of propriety and righteous moralizing. Confucius has long been the victim of a certain unwitting Christianization, having been interpreted through the lens of Western philosophical assumptions. Ames and Rosemont scale away these assumptions, revealing a flexible and subtle thinker whose ideas of how to live well in a harmonious community have much to offer a fragmented society tied to reductive atomism and the exclusive exaltation of the individual. --Brian Bruya

Five Lost Classics: Tao, Huang-lao, and Yin-yang in Han China (Classics of Ancient China)

Robin D.S. Yates

List Price: $4.99 By: Ballantine Books Amazon Marketplace: 14 new & used starting at $17.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Ancient -> China
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> China -> General
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> China -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Three schools of Taoism flourished at the beginning of the Han Dynasty in 2nd-Century B.C. China: the Lao-tzu, the Chuang-tzu, and the Huang-Lao, the last being the most influential philosophy at the court of the Han rulers. But, after Confucianism became the predominant court philosophy in the 1st Century B.C., Huang-Lao Taoism became little more than a name; its central principles virtually forgotten, its texts destroyed or lost.

In 1973, among the many unique documents discovered in the richly furnished tomb of a Han-dynasty aristocrat, were five books written on silk, primary texts of Huang-lao Taoism and Yin-yang philosophy that had been lost to mankind for more than 2,000 years. A discovery as important in China as the unearthing of the Dead Sea Scrolls was in the West, the Mawangdui texts created a sensation when they were first published, even leading to the foundation of a new religion on Taiwan. Now Robin D. S. Yates, a noted expert in Chinese history and philosophy, offers the first complete translation of these precious and unique texts to be published in a Western language.

As Professor Yates explains in his illuminating introduction to this volume, the recovery of the five lost classics sheds new light on a critical transitional period of Chinese political and intellectual history. Implicit in the texts is the assumption that a ruler who strives to align himself with the unknowable, transcendent order of the cosmos will become a "true king" capable of commanding the allegiance of a unified China. To this end, the essays deal with concrete questions of self-cultivation and political insight rather than with the abstract considerations typical of Western philosophy.

The first four texts focus on different facets of Huang-lao Taoism while the fifth is devoted to Yin-yang philosophy: The Canon: Law unfolds the essence of the Tao and explains why rulers must abide within the boundaries of the law; The Canon is largely cast as a series of stories and dialogues between the mythological Yellow Emperor and his leading officials; Designations is a collection of fifty-four aphorisms expounding the eternal dilemmas of the human condition; Tao the Origin is an essay on the origin of the Tao; The Nine Rulers, the fragmentary fifth text, is a Yin-yang essay that considers the laws of nature which effective rulers must understand and obey. It is the only Yin-yang text which has survived almost whole into the Twentieth Century, and is valuable because its philosophy is basic to the origins of Huang-Lao tradition.

Brilliantly translated by Professor Yates and prefaced with his fascinating and informative introduction, Five Lost Classics is as accessible to general readers as it is illuminating to scholars. With the publication of this volume, a document of inestimable value takes its place, after a two thousand year hiatus, in the canon of world literature and philosophy.

The Tao Te Ching: A New Approach To: Backward Down the Path

Jerry O. Dalton

Amazon Price: $16.95 List Price: $16.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Humanics Ltd Partners Amazon Marketplace: 35 new & used starting at $3.80

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Philosophy -> Eastern -> Chinese
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Philosophy -> Eastern -> Taoism
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Philosophy -> Eastern -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Practical exercises for practicing the Way 4 out of 5 stars.
14 of 14 people found this review helpful.

Backward Down the Path is outstanding on two levels: It offers thought-provoking suggestions for putting the Way to practice in our everyday lives and clarifies the message of the Tao te Ching in language understandable to the general Western reader. Dr. Dalton's personal experience with Taoist spirituality lends remarkable compassion to his interpretation of the text. This is an excellent book for anyone interested in exploring the Way.

Editorial Review:

A practical guide to the mystical and a mystical guide to the practical, this book results from a painstaking comparison of thirty editions of the Tao te Ching. The chapters of the ancient original work, synthesized from the author's comparisons, are each followed by detailed paraphrases. These explain the Tao more clearly, yet retain the shrouded truth of the original. Particular emphasis is placed upon the philosophy's applications to love, work, parenting, and everyday situations. Stimulate your thinking and learn practical application of Taoist principles; find the natural accord between your body and mind.

The Art of Writing: Teachings of the Chinese Masters

Tony Barnstone

Amazon Price: $15.95 List Price: $15.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Shambhala Amazon Marketplace: 47 new & used starting at $3.48

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Self-Help -> Creativity
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Self-Help -> General
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Self-Help -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Great Book of Aphorisms about Writing! 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I guess that other reviewer didn't bother to read the title of the book before he bought it. So you buy a book that says it's about what Chinese writers have to say about poetry and are disappointed that it's not a manual on how to write poetry in English? There are plenty of those out there. This book is unusual and fascinating, a luminous collection of Chinese wisdom about the art of the poem. In fact, I think it would be very helpfult to someone who writes poetry and wants to know what the great Chinese poets value in literature and esthetics. It's funny, witty, charming, and like nothing else out there. A fantastic book.

Editorial Review:

"Use very straight speech/ without design or calculation." Advice modern day politicos would find impossible to follow, but a good adage for writers needing a reminder to keep things simple and clear. Such tips are scattered throughout The Art of Writing, a collection of ancient Chinese musings on the writer's art, filled with Taoist clarity and sly humor. "Observe creation without taboos. Swallow a vast wilderness and spit it out again." That's a whole book on writing right there.

Reflections on the Tao Te Ching: A New Way of Reading the Classic Book of Wisdom

David K. Reynolds

List Price: $15.00 By: William Morrow & Co Amazon Marketplace: 15 new & used starting at $2.72

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Philosophy -> Eastern -> Chinese
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Philosophy -> Eastern -> Taoism
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Philosophy -> Eastern -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Good 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 8 people found this review helpful.

This is by no means a translation, so the idea of it being a Daoist work is irrelevent. It is, in fact, a writing of Constructive Living - based on the method of psychotherapy by Morita Masatake - using the Dao De Jing as a template. The book provides simple and sound wisdom for breaking through unrealistic thinking that gets in the way of allowing a more natural way of life and less suffering caused by obsession, compulsive behaviour, and other manifestations of held back thoughts and feelings. Another book using the Dao De Jing as a template that I highly recommend is Haven Treviño's The Tao of Healing.

Poetic but irrelevant 2 out of 5 stars.
2 of 9 people found this review helpful.

This book, though it is a very artistic "interpretation", it bears no resemblance in form or function to the Tao Te Ching. There has been an attempt by the author to make this philosophy seem relevant to the modern world and in the process of doing this much of the symbolism and beauty that was in the original work has been lost. The Tao Te Ching posseses a powerful, wide reaching message of peace and teaches a peaceful way of life, this "poetic rewriting" instead tries to explain to us the underlying principles in the Tao Te Ching but fail to do this and it come across as a much more superficial way of explaining something completely different

Editorial Review:

A poetic rewriting of one of the classic books of wisdom uses the language of Constructive Living, an action-oriented lifeway based on Japanese psychotherapies, to craft an accessible work. 50,000 first printing.

Tai Chen on Mencius: Explorations in Words and Meanings

Tai Chen

Amazon Price: $35.00 List Price: $35.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Yale University Press Amazon Marketplace: 29 new & used starting at $13.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> China -> General
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> China -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> General AAS

Editorial Review:

The Ch'ing scholar-thinker Tai Chen (1724-1777) was a passionate explorer. He loved words, and his most important philosophical treatise, the Meng Tzu tzu-I shu-cheng (An evidential study of the meaning of terms in the Mencius), is an exhaustive search for the meaning of the words first uttered by Mencius in the fourth century B.C. This book by Ann-ping Chin and Mansfield Freeman is the first complete and annotated English translation of that treatise. Drawing on scholarship from the eighteenth century to the present, it also includes two essays that reconstruct Tai Chen's life and time and reinterpret his thought. Unlike most of the evidential scholars of his day, Tai Chen was not satisfied merely with providing reason and proof for his reading. He was interested in the life of words as their meaning changes with the vicissitudes of time. Tai Chen felt that the terms in the Mencius, garbled by the Sung and Ming thinkers who had come under the influence of Buddhism and Taoism, would no longer have made sense to Mencius himself. Key Confucian concepts, such as "principle" and "nature," had become "blood-less" moral constructs. Tai Chen preferred their primeval meaning.Intellectual historians of this century have hailed him as a progressive thinker and a social critic, but he saw himself in a simpler role: as a reader striving to understand every word in his text.

Essays on Man and Culture

Cheng Man Ch'Ing

Amazon Price: $15.25 List Price: $16.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Frog Books Amazon Marketplace: 41 new & used starting at $0.80

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> World Literature -> General AAS
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Philosophy -> Consciousness & Thought
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Philosophy -> Eastern -> Chinese

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A tai chi master's thoughts on the world 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Cheng Man-ch'ing wrote this series of essays to make various points of classical Chinese philosophy understandable to beginning readers. Hennessy does a wonderful job in translating this work so it is smooth and easy to read. He also tracks down the classical references for each essay, providing a context for a western reader without the necessary background. I found this work fascinating, as a discussion of the philosophy of Cheng. It is well worth a look for anyone interested in an interpretation of Chinese philosophy, or of Cheng Man-ch'ing himself.

Editorial Review:

Cheng Man-ch'ing wrote this series of essays to make various points of classical Chinese philosophy understandable to beginning readers. Hennessy does a wonderful job in translating this work, as well as providing the classical references for each essay, giving a historical context for a western reader without the necessary background. In his continuing effort to show the artistic and scholarly vision of Professor Cheng, Mark Hennessy has brought out not only the subtle depth of Cheng’s interpretation of these classics, but his humor, sly wit, and awareness of cultural change.

The Propensity of Things: Toward a History of Efficacy in China

Francois Jullien

Amazon Price: $24.95 List Price: $24.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Zone Books Amazon Marketplace: 14 new & used starting at $17.50

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> China -> General
Subjects -> History -> Asia -> China -> General AAS
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Philosophy -> Eastern -> Chinese

Editorial Review:

". . . truly a magnificent piece of work. . . " -- China Review International

". . . a thoughtful, at times brilliant essay. . ." -- The Journal of Asian Studies

In this book, his first to appear in English, French sinologist François Jullien uses the Chinese concept of shi--meaning disposition or circumstance, power or potential--as a touchstone to explore Chinese culture and to uncover the intricate structure underlying Chinese modes of thinking. He follows the concept from one field to another--including military strategy, politics, the aesthetics of calligraphy, and literary theory--and from reflection on history to "first philosophy." At the point where these various domains intersect, a fundamental intuition assumed for centuries to be self-evident emerges, namely, that reality--every kind of reality--may be perceived as a particular deployment or arrangement of things to be relied upon and worked to one's advantage.