Jacques Gernet (1921–2018)

Though I do not doubt Gernet's scholarship, which in this book is wide-ranging and often in depth, the book suffers firstly from a sometimes over-specialisation on certain matters (such as devoting several pages to the intricacies of Tang dynasty horse-breeding) and a startling lack of work on post-1949 China. Obviously, there is the problem of age, but even so, to devote less than a page to post-Cultural Revolution events is poor writing. As for the English translation, to render all the original pinyin spellings into Wade-Giles is baffling.… (more)