Confucius

1997 · 21006 — New York: W. W. Norton. New. 1997. Hardcover. 0393040194 . FREE UPGRADE to Courier/Priority Shipping Upon Request - IN STOCK AND IMMEDIATELY AVAILABLE FOR SHIPMENT - 224 pages -- Interior text is clean tight and unmarked. Pages are intact and tight to the spine. Very slight rubbing to front flap of DJ. From a review by Ray Olson in "Booklist": "Nearly all of us think we know Confucius ca. 551-479 B. C. . He is the archetypal Chinese sage spouting cryptic one-liners and to the slightly more knowledgeable the inventor of ancestor worship and the groveling before authority that supposedly hobbled progress in China. With his new translation of the only Confucian text Leys seeks to restore Confucius' reputation by presenting him as an apt teacher for today. Confucius' China was racked by political dissolution and violence and he prescribed ritualized politeness as a means of bolstering order. But he did not countenance injustice venality and the other vices of authority; and he thought that being a gentleman--the most important and desirable status in his political prescription--was something an ethical man from any social class could attain provided he mastered the kind of education the West has called liberal. To Western societies that many find lacking in civility order and virtue Confucius does indeed speak and in this version with maximum clarity thanks to the crystalline introduction and notes as much as to the translation." -- with a bonus offer--; . W. W. Norton hardcover