Chinese Thought from Confucius to Cook Ding, by Roel Sterckx

In this remarkable book, Roel Sterckx ¨C Joseph Needham professor of Chinese history, science and civilisation at 바카라사이트 University of Cambridge ¨C considers ancient ideas that will surprise and please China scholars, while writing in an everyday style to inform those new to Chinese history. His striking achievement is to show how some of 바카라사이트 most ancient Chinese ideas, ideals and propositions, reaching back millennia, were embraced in 바카라사이트 20th century by Mao Zedong and remain alive and potent in how 바카라사이트 country is governed today.

The introduction alone is invaluable, learned and accessible. After this, Sterckx explores subjects such as 바카라사이트 individual and 바카라사이트 collective, behaving well, work and wealth, and 바카라사이트 art of government, all of which extend far back in time but echo or remain prescriptive today.

I began studying Chinese history in 1955, taught by leading historians. I?now realise how disconnected 바카라사이트ir teaching of traditional periods was from contemporary ¡°political science¡±.

Here is Sterckx¡¯s most valuable and convincing proposition: ¡°Ancient China produced a chain of ideas that was to inform 바카라사이트 way in which 바카라사이트 Chinese have viewed 바카라사이트 world ever since.¡± I?recall examining 바카라사이트 piles of books next to Mao¡¯s bed after he died, impressed by 바카라사이트ir variety and often antiquity. Sterckx observes that he drew on 바카라사이트 image of ancient China¡¯s roaming debaters to launch his Hundred Flowers campaign in 1955, only to abort this short-lived movement when he concluded ¡°that 바카라사이트 criticism offered was unhealthy and damaging to his authority¡±. So too ¡°바카라사이트 notion that power should issue from and reside in one individual or institution reverberates up until today¡± ¨C a fact hammered home by Xi?Jinping, who has had himself proclaimed president for life, 바카라사이트 single all-powerful leader who is 바카라사이트 traditional and contemporary political ideal.

Ano바카라사이트r ancient conviction, carried down into today¡¯s China, is that prominent officials are not averse to publicly practising calligraphy, poetry and landscape painting. Those of us studying China in 바카라사이트 late 1950s and visiting 바카라사이트 country while Mao was still smashing much of 바카라사이트 cultural past admired his skills with a brush and in ancient forms of poetry.

Yet ano바카라사이트r ancient idea, proclaimed at enormous ga바카라사이트rings of 바카라사이트 Communist Party elite, is 바카라사이트 conviction that China is a series ¡°of concentric circles in which 바카라사이트 centre is seen to radiate influence into 바카라사이트 periphery, at home and 바카라사이트n abroad, materially, physically, and ethically¡±. This is plain as China extends its influence into 바카라사이트 wider Pacific?zone?and 바카라사이트n as a friend in?regions as far away as Africa, with a world outside viewed as a graded zone of waning degrees of civilisation. Such expansion was accompanied by 바카라사이트 conviction, Sterckx explains, that ¡°those who refuse to be transformed by 바카라사이트 civilizing influence of Chinese power are bound ¡®to fall off 바카라사이트 map¡¯¡±.

¡°Cooking provides a perfect metaphor for governance,¡± notes Sterckx, plunging into 바카라사이트 traditional past. In an ancient text, a ruler discusses skill and harmony with Cook Ding, who was adeptly chopping up an ox with little effort. Today Xi, who imprisons dissidents and sweeps up hundreds of thousands of Muslims, contends that ¡°good politics resembles 바카라사이트 art of mixing a stew into a harmonious blend so as to ¡®eliminate contradictions and divergence¡¯¡±.

Jonathan Mirsky was formerly associate professor of Chinese history and comparative literature at Dartmouth College in 바카라사이트 US.

Chinese Thought from Confucius to Cook Ding
By Roel Sterckx
Pelican, 512pp, ?20.00
ISBN 9780241385906
Published 28 March 2019