This book considers the ways in which religious beliefs and practices have contributed to the formation of Chinese legal culture. It does so by describing two forms of overlap between religion and the law: the ideology of justice and the performance of judicial rituals.

One of the most important conceptual underpinnings of the Chinese ideology of justice is the belief in the inevitability of retribution. Similar values permeate Chinese religious traditions, all of which contend that justice will prevail despite corruption and incompetence among judicial officials in this...

This book is the first English language study of Qian Qianyi (1582-1664) - a poet and literary critic during the Ming-Qing dynastic transition. Although Qian's works constitute some of the greatest achievements in pre-modern Chinese lyric poetry, they have been largely understudied and are poorly understood. Qian was reputed for his own aesthetic that changed the character of late Ming and early Qing poetry. His name, however, was branded with infamy for his disloyalty to the Ming dynasty when it dissolved. Consequently, his works were censored by the Qing court and have been forgotten by...

Young-tsu Wong throws new light on Kang Youwei and Zhang Binglin, both through research on the sources, nature and import of their ideas and through juxtaposing them. The result is a provocative and stimulating analysis of late Qing-early Republican thought. Never before these two rival thinkers have been studied in any western language, and Wong sees these two men, though distinctly different in personality and thought, as the genuine pioneers of modern Chinese thought. The author highlights the mix of traditional Chinese thought, especially Confucianism and western ideas as well as the...