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.
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.
*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*
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
