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.

Douglas Wile translates and analyzes four collections of recently released nineteenth-century manuscripts on T'ai-chi ch'uan. These writings of Wu's older brothers Ch'eng-ch'ing and Ju-ch'ing, and his nephew Li I-yu, together with the transmissions of Yang Pan-hou, represent a significant addition to the seminal literature. The rich new texts allow us to make a fresh survey of longstanding issues in T'ai-chi history: the origins of the art; the authorship of the "classics;" the differences between Wu, Yang, and Li; and the roles of Chang San-feng, Wang Tsung-yueh, Chiang Fa, and the formerly missing link, Ch'ang Nai-chou. The original Chinese texts of the four new sets of classics have been appended for the convenience of Chinese readers and scholars. The book reconsiders the world of the Wu, Yang, and Li families of Yung-nien and reconstructs it against the background of the Opium Wars, the Taiping Rebellion, and the decline of the Manchu dynasty. New biographical sources illuminate the domestic and political lives of the Yung-nien circle and their orientation to the late imperial intellectual trends. The development of T'ai-chi ch'uan in the nineteenth century is explored in the context of China's cultural response to the challenge of the West and the role of body-centered arts in Asia during the drive for independence and the ongoing search for national identity.

Together, and for the first time in any language, the 24 essays gathered in these volumes provide a composite picture of the history of religion in ancient China from the emergence of writing ca. 1250 BC to the collapse of the first major imperial dynasty in 220 AD. It is a multi-faceted tale of changing gods and rituals that includes the emergence of a form of “secular humanism” that doubts the existence of the gods and the efficacy of ritual and of an imperial orthodoxy that founds its legitimacy on a distinction between licit and illicit sacrifices. Written by specialists in a variety of disciplines, the essays cover such subjects as divination and cosmology, exorcism and medicine, ethics and self-cultivation, mythology, taboos, sacrifice, shamanism, burial practices, iconography, and political philosophy. Produced under the aegis of the Centre de recherche sur les civilisations chinoise, japonaise et tibétaine (UMR 8155) and the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris).

Offers a new perspective on the relationship between religion and the creation of the first Chinese empires. Heaven Is Empty offers a new comparative perspective on the role of the sacred in the formation of China’s early empires (221 BCE–9 CE) and shows how the unification of the Central States was possible without a unitary and universalistic conception of religion. The cohesive function of the ancient Mediterranean cult of the divinized ruler was crucial for the legitimization of Rome’s empire across geographical and social boundaries. Eventually reelaborated in Christian terms, it came to embody the timelessness and universality of Western conceptions of legitimate authority, while representing an analytical template for studying other ancient empires. Filippo Marsili challenges such approaches in his examination of the reign of Emperor Wu of the Han (141–87 BCE). Wu purposely drew from regional traditions and tried to gain the support of local communities through his patronage of local cults. He was interested in rituals that envisioned the monarch as a military leader, who directly controlled the land and its resources, as a means for legitimizing radical administrative and economic centralization. In reconstructing this imperial model, Marsilire interprets fragmentary official accounts in light of material evidence and noncanonical and recently excavated texts. In bringing to life the courts, battlefields, markets, shrines, and pleasure quarters of early imperial China, Heaven Is Empty provides a postmodern and postcolonial reassessment of “religion” before the arrival of Buddhism and challenges the application of Greco-Roman and Abrahamic systemic, identitary, and exclusionary notions of the “sacred” to the analysis of pre-Christian and non-Western realities. “Heaven Is Empty is a tour de force. It reveals Marsili’s bold vision of early Chinese religion and his deft use of critical theory. The book will inspire scholars of early China for generations to come.” — Miranda Brown, author of The Politics of Mourning in Early China and The Art of Medicine in Early China: The Ancient and Medieval Origins of a Modern Archive

X-Men meets Spy Kids in this instant New York Times bestseller! Here’s the first book in a new middle-grade fantasy/adventure series from the author of The Unwanteds. Fifteen years ago, eight supernatural criminals fled Estero City to make a new life in an isolated tropical hideout. Over time, seven of them disappeared without a trace, presumed captured or killed. And now, the remaining one has died. Left behind to fend for themselves are the criminals’ five children, each with superpowers of their own: Birdie can communicate with animals. Brix has athletic abilities and can heal quickly. Tenner can swim like a fish and can see in the dark and hear from a distance. Seven’s skin camouflages to match whatever is around him. Cabot hasn’t shown signs of any unusual power—yet. Then one day Birdie finds a map among her father’s things that leads to a secret stash. There is also a note: Go to Estero, find your mother, and give her the map. The five have lived their entire lives in isolation. What would it mean to follow the map to a strange world full of things they’ve only heard about, like cell phones, cars, and electricity? A world where, thanks to their parents, being supernatural is a crime?

Chinese rulers and statesmen were naturally concerned about the issue of war, when to wage it, when it was justified, and when to avoid it. Although much has been asserted about how these issues were understood in Chinese culture, this work is the first study actually to focus on the debates themselves. These debates at court proceeded from specific understandings of what constituted evidence, and involved the practical concerns of policy as well as more general cultural values. The result is a decidedly messy portrait of Chinese decision making over two millenia that is neither distinctly Chinese nor entirely generic. Contributors are Parks Coble, Garret Olberding, David Pong, Kenneth Swope, Paul Van Els, David Wright, and Shu-Hui Wu.

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