This book is about the tension between de facto political power and the claims to intellectual and moral leadership of the shi ('gentleman class') in Early Medieval China. Shelun, or Hypothetical Discourse, is a hitherto neglected Chinese literary genre. The author for the first time places the surviving texts against the political background that accounts for its rise and decline in early medieval China. Comprehensively annotated translations of seven Hypothetical Discourses are placed in the context of their authors' lives and times, with an emphasis on the post-Han...
This book is about the tension between de facto political power and the claims to intellectual and moral leadership of the shi ('gentlem...
