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<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br><p>This translation presents the <i>Analects</i> in a revolutionary new format that, for the first time in any language, distinguishes the original words of the Master from the later sayings of his disciples and their followers, enabling readers to experience China's most influential philosophical work in its true historical, social, and political context.</p><p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br>This new translation presents the <i>Analects</i> in a revolutionary new format that, for the first time in any language, distinguishes the original words of the Master from the later sayings of his disciples and their followers, enabling readers to experience China's most influential philosophical work in its true historical, social, and political context.<p/><br></br><p><b> From the Back Cover </b></p></br></br>No one has influenced Chinese life as profoundly as Confucius. Among the most important embodiments of that influence is the Analects, a seeming record of Confucius's conversations with his disciples and with the rulers and ministers of his own time. These sayings, many of them laconic, aphoristic, and difficult to interpret, have done much to shape the culture and history of East Asia. Bruce and Taeko Brooks have returned this wide-ranging text to its full historical and intellectual setting, organizing the sayings in their original chronological sequence, and permitting the Analects to be read for maximum understanding, not as a closed system of thought but as a richly revealing record of the interaction of life and thought as it evolved over almost the entire Warring States period. The Original Analects has clarified contradictions in the text by showing how they reflect changing social conditions and philosophical emphases over the two centuries during which it was compiled. The book includes a fresh and fluid translation, a detailed commentary and interpretation for each saying, illustrations of objects from the Warring States period, and an extensive critical apparatus setting forth the textual argument on which the translation is based, and indicating how the later view of the work as the consistent maxims of a universal sage gradually replaced the historical reality.<p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br><i>The Original Analects</i> is a remarkable book that ranks among the most significant and impressive works on Chinese thought ever published in English.--Journal of Asian Studies<br><br>The most exciting study of the <i>Lun yu</i> yet published in a Western language. Its potential implications are monumental, ranging from a rewriting of our understanding of early Confucianism and the nature of intellectual transmission in early China.--Chinese Review International<br><br>With the publication of this translation, scholars now have a fully developed interpretation of a single text with which to test the Brooks' hypotheses. Undoubtedly we have not heard the last or even the definitive word on dating texts in early China. But the Brooks should be credited with pushing the field one great step further along in its development.--Pacific Affairs<br><br>Its insightful readings and interpretive strategies stand to enrich our overall understanding of the Analects and its traditions.--Lisa Raphals "International Studies in Philosophy "<br><p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br>E. Bruce Brooks is Research Professor of Chinese at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He has published studies on various aspects of textual analysis in Chinese and English.A. Taeko Brooks is the coauthor, with E. Bruce Brooks, of <i>Chinese Character Frequency Lists</i> and with him was the cofounder in 1993 of the Warring States Working Group.

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