"This culture of ours" : intellectual transitions in Tʼang and Sung China /

Bol's book is a major accomplishment, intellectual history at its best. Bol (Harvard) deals with a very large topic as he relates changes in the underlying aims and objects of intellectual activity to the changing historical situation and composition of China's elite (the shih). Along with a broad interpretative framework, Bol offers new perspectives on influential figures, and subtle readings from a wide range of sources. He begins in the seventh century with the literary-cultural (wen) orientation of early T'ang court scholarship and concludes in the Sung (960-1279) with the Neo-Confucian emphasis on ethics, which met the needs of a new local elite (still shih) and remained dominant until the 17th century. Every serious student of the history and the literary and intellectual culture of traditional China will want to read Bol's study and will need to take it into account. Advanced undergraduate; graduate; faculty. C. Schirokauer; City College, CUNY