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Sources of Western Zhou History
The thousands of ritual bronze vessels discovered by China's archaeologists serve as the major documentary source for the Western Zhou dynasty (1045-771 B.C.). These vessels contain long inscriptions full of detail on subjects as diverse as the military history of the period, the bureaucratic structure of the royal court, and lawsuits among the gentry. Moreover, being cast in bronze, the inscriptions preserve exactly the contemporary script and language. Shaughnessy has written a meticulous and detailed work on the historiography and interpretation of these objects. By demonstrating how the inscriptions are read and interpreted, Shaughnessy makes accessible in English some of the most important evidence about life in ancient China.
Before Confucius
Examines the original composition of China's oldest books, the Classic of Changes, the Venerated Documents, and the Classic of Poetry, and attempts to restore their original meanings.
A Brief History of Ancient China
A Brief History of Ancient China adapts a traditional Chinese historical format to present a multi-faceted account of the first two millennia of China's earliest history: from the time of the legendary rulers Yao and Shun (c. 2000 BCE) down to the end of the Qin dynasty (221-207 BCE). Organised into five major sections, it examines the political shifts of the major dynasties, the histories of local states, and the lives of key individuals. Drawing on analysis of textual and visual materials, and a variety of English and non-English sources, Edward L. Shaughnessy offers detailed insight into the contemporary religious and philosophical landscape, governmental and legal practices, and innovations in writing, literature, and music. Incorporating recent developments in the field, this book draws on archaeological discoveries from the last century, and examines the lives of central female figures, and other groups who are often underrepresented.
Rewriting Early Chinese Texts
Explores the rewriting of early Chinese texts in the wake of new archaeological evidence.
Writing Early China
Archaeological discoveries over the past one hundred years have resulted in repeated calls to "rewrite ancient Chinese history." This is especially true of documents written on oracle bones, bronze vessels, and bamboo strips. In Writing Early China, Edward L. Shaughnessy surveys all of these types of documents and considers what they reveal about the creation and transmission of knowledge in ancient China. Opposed to the common view that most knowledge was transmitted orally in ancient China, Shaughnessy demonstrates that by no later than the tenth century BCE scribes were writing lengthy texts like portions of the Chinese classics, and that by the fourth century BCE the primary mode of textual transmission was by way of visual copying from one manuscript to another.
The Oxford Handbook of Early China
A chronological and interdisciplinary study of early China from the Neolithic through Warring States periods (ca 5000-500BCE).
Documentation and Argument in Early China
This study uncovers the traditions behind the formative Classic Shàngshū (Venerated Documents). It is the first to establish these traditions—“Shū” (Documents)—as a historically evolving practice of thought-production. By focusing on the literary form of the argument, it interprets the “Shū” as fluid text material that embodies the ever-changing cultural capital of projected conceptual communities. By showing how these communities actualised the “Shū” according to their changing visions of history and evolving group interests, the study establishes that by the Warring States period (ca. 453–221 BC) the “Shū” had become a literary genre employed by diverse groups to legitimize their own arguments. Through forms of textual performance, the “Shū” gave even peripheral communities the means to participate in political discourse by conferring their ideas with ancient authority. Analysing this dynamic environment of socio-political and philosophical change, this study speaks to the Early China field, as well as to those interested in meaning production and foundational text formation more widely.
The Origin and Early Development of the Zhou Changes
The Zhou Changes, better known in the West as I Ching, is one of the masterpieces of world literature. This book, the climax of more than forty years of research in Chinese archaeology, explores the text’s origins in the oracle-bone and milfoil divinations of Bronze Age China and how it transformed over the course of the Zhou dynasty into the first of the Chinese classics. The book provides an in-depth survey of the theory and practice of divination to demonstrate how the hexagram and line statements of the text were produced and how they were understood at the time.
The Confucian-Legalist State
The Confucian-Legalist State proposes a new theory of social change and, in doing so, analyzes the patterns of Chinese history, such as the rise and persistence of a unified empire, the continuous domination of Confucianism, and China's inability to develop industrial capitalism without Western imperialism.
Unearthing the Changes
In recent years, three ancient manuscripts relating to the Yi jing (I Ching), or Classic of Changes, have been discovered. The earliest—the Shanghai Museum Zhou Yi—dates to about 300 B.C.E. and shows evidence of the text’s original circulation. The Gui cang, or Returning to Be Treasured, reflects another ancient Chinese divination tradition based on hexagrams similar to those of the Yi jing. In 1993, two manuscripts found in a third-century B.C.E. tomb at Wangjiatai contained almost exact parallels to the Gui cang’s early quotations, supplying new information on the performance of early Chinese divination. Finally, the Fuyang Zhou Yi was excavated from the tomb of Xia Hou Zao, lord o...
