This is the first complete English translation of Lushi chunqiu, compiled in 239 b. c. under the patronage of Lu Buwei, prime minister to the ruler of the state of Qin, who was to become the first emperor of a newly unified China fifteen years later. Lu retained a group of scholars whose aim was to encompass the world's knowledge in one great encyclopedia; so delighted was Lu with the finished work that he is said to have offered a fabulous prize of gold to anyone who could add or subtract even a single word. An exceptionally rich and comprehensive compendium, The Annals of Lu...

Coming at the end of the great flowering of philosophical inquiry in Warring States China, when the foundations for traditional Chinese thought were laid, Xunzi occupies a place analogous to that of Aristotle in the West. The collection of works bearing his name contains not only the most systematic philosophical exposition by any early Confucian thinker, but also account of virtually every aspect of the intellectual, cultural, and social life of his time. Xunzi was a social critic and intellectual historian as well as a philosopher. He was also extremely active in the political and academic...