This collection of essays written by his former students and colleagues represent the many foci of interest that Erik Zurcher has shared with them during his tenure as professor at Leiden University. They include discussions of Confucian philosophy, Buddhist and Christian polemics, the spread of Jesuit literature and anti-Christian attitudes among the literati, Ming aphorisms, the Chinese pictorial of skulls and skeletons, the Ch'ien-lung Emperor's eightieth birthday celebrations, Sino-Korean relations, and the "little traditions" in Chinese historical development, secret societies and...

Beyond Tradition and Modernity is a collection of original essays which considers the complexities behind the dramatic changes generated in China during the last decades of the nineteenth and the first decades of the twentieth century. As men and women literally-or metaphorically- crossed into new geographical worlds, they came to express their understanding of the expanding universe in a variety of ways which cannot be neatly labeled either traditional or modern. The contributors to this volume demonstrate how the creativity of these writers marked a new moment in historical and...