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"The long-awaited publication of this magnum opus by Scott Cook, one of the leading scholars in the fields of early Chinese philosophy and the study of excavated manuscripts, is a major event in the study of early China and a cause for celebration. Cook, in Asia better known under his Chinese name Gu Shikao, which also appears on the book cover, presents us with a comprehensive study and translation of the entire corpus of the Guodianmanuscripts. The great significance of this work is owing not only to its scholarly quality but also to the special importance of its subject matter. -- Matthias L. Richter * Journal of Chinese Religions * This magnificent, 1,200-page, two-volume work is an essential reference for anyone interested in the Guodian texts.... Scott Cook has been comprehensive and inclusive, distilling scholarship from close to 1,000 secondary sources in his copiously annotated transcriptions of texts and in his discussion of the debates they have inspired.... Cook's aim in this work was to ""provide a manageable basis for futher study"" (p. 176) and, as he acknowledges, his translations naturally reflect his own informed understanding of the texts. Given the continuing debates over strip order and the identification of particular graphs, as well as differing views on the nature of certain texts, scholars of course have different interpretations of the materials. Future discoveries of palaeo-graphic materials, along with advances in the field of historical phonology, will allow scholars to reasses the identification of certain graphs, also affecting our understanding of the texts. But Cook's objective presentation clearly acknowledges these facts, and the reader is provided with many of the alternative analyses and made aware that the work will best be used in conjunction with new findings that solve or clarify remaining problems. * Journal of Asian Studies *"

The long-awaited publication of this magnum opus by Scott Cook, one of the leading scholars in the fields of early Chinese philosophy and the study of excavated manuscripts, is a major event in the study of early China and a cause for celebration. Cook, in Asia better known under his Chinese name Gu Shikao, which also appears on the book cover, presents us with a comprehensive study and translation of the entire corpus of the Guodianmanuscripts. The great significance of this work is owing not only to its scholarly quality but also to the special importance of its subject matter. -- Matthias L. Richter * Journal of Chinese Religions * This magnificent, 1,200-page, two-volume work is an essential reference for anyone interested in the Guodian texts.... Scott Cook has been comprehensive and inclusive, distilling scholarship from close to 1,000 secondary sources in his copiously annotated transcriptions of texts and in his discussion of the debates they have inspired.... Cook's aim in this work was to provide a manageable basis for futher study (p. 176) and, as he acknowledges, his translations naturally reflect his own informed understanding of the texts. Given the continuing debates over strip order and the identification of particular graphs, as well as differing views on the nature of certain texts, scholars of course have different interpretations of the materials. Future discoveries of palaeo-graphic materials, along with advances in the field of historical phonology, will allow scholars to reasses the identification of certain graphs, also affecting our understanding of the texts. But Cook's objective presentation clearly acknowledges these facts, and the reader is provided with many of the alternative analyses and made aware that the work will best be used in conjunction with new findings that solve or clarify remaining problems. * Journal of Asian Studies *

Author Information

Scott Cookreceived his Ph.D. in Chinese from the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Michigan in 1995 and was recently Professor of Chinese and Cowles-Kruidenier Chair of Chinese Studies at Grinnell College, where he has been teaching since 1996. He specializes in pre-Qin textual studies and early Chinese intellectual history. He is the author of Guodian Chujian xian-Qin rushu hongweiguan(The Pre-Imperial Confucian Texts of Guodian: Broad and Focused Perspectives) (Taipei: Xuesheng shuju, 2006), editor of Hiding the World in the World: Uneven Discourses on the Zhuangzi (Albany: SUNY Press, 2003), and the author of around fifty articles in English and Chinese. Professor Cook is currently on the faculty of Yale-NUS College in Singapore.

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