Finding wisdom in East Asian classics

The perfect companion to courses in Asian civilization and culture, Finding Wisdom in East Asian Classics provides nonspecialists with essential background on frequently assigned texts. With essays addressing foundational materials in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese traditions, including Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, and early modern fictional classics up to the seventeenth century, this guide works in any classroom and with readers at all levels. It demonstrates the particular link between each text and its tradition and proves the global relevance of Asian classics to the humanities at large.

Wm. Theodore de Bary combines reprinted and original essays on texts that have survived for centuries, if not millennia, through avid questioning and contestation. Recognized as perennial reflections on life and society, these works represent diverse historical periods and cultures and include the Laozi, the Xunxi, the Lotus Sutra, Tang poetry,...