Edward L. Shaughnessy (1) (1952–)

Four thousand years of Chinese history beautifully presented, lavishly illustrated and succinctly described. There is a lot of information here and as an overview of Chinese history - political; religious and cultural - it is well worth reading. Although this is probably better as a reference work rather than a straight read.

I found the format rather short and choppy on each theme described - as each theme is broken up into shorter sections of between two and four pages. Several people wrote show more the different chapters and, in my opinion, certain bits are better than others. There is an extensive bibliography so, if any of the different aspects described catch your interest, there are plenty of ideas for further reading. show less

Very interesting argument that the Zhou (Chou) conquest of the Shang was much more
violent than the idealized version in later
Confucian writings made it out to be. Takes
the early records seriously as historical sources for events circa 1000 BC

I spent considerable time a while back studying a few ancient Chinese texts trying to get a handle on them absent the western psycho-analytical and new-age cruft. This, along with Henrick's [Te Tao Ching] were my key texts. Careful, clear, and scholarly, Shaughnessy certainly has his own ideas what the book is about, but his healthy humility encourages the reader to appreciate the text on it's own merits, without any sort of predisposition..

Toen de eigenlijke The Cambridge History of China in de late zestiger jaren werd geconcipieerd, werd een pre-Qin (i.e. pre-221 v.Chr) deel niet voor mogelijk gehouden. Inmiddels is het oorspronkelijke project ook nog niet klaar, maar is China sinds 1976 zo open gegaan en het vakgebied zo opgebloeid, dat dit uitstekende deel mogelijk is geworden.