Description: Presenting the commentary of the third-century sage Wang Bi, this book provides a Chinese way of reading the Daodejing, one which will surprise Western readers.
Brief description: Rudolf G. Wagner is Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Heidelberg and the author or editor of many books, including A Chinese Reading of the Daodejing: Wang Bi's Commentary on the Laozi with Critical Text and Translation, also published by SUNY Press.
Review Quotes:
"I highly recommend this remarkable book and strongly encourage readers to do a critical reading themselves." - Xing Wen, Dao
"...a painstaking effort ... that merits praise and serious attention." - Journal of Chinese Religions
"Perhaps the most meticulous and ambitious English-language 'philological study and translation' of a Chinese 'philosophical' text ever published." - Religious Studies Review
"I like this book's identification and solution of a critical problem in our understanding of Wang Bi's Commentary on the Laozi, namely that the received text of the Laozi that has accompanied Wang Bi's Commentary for centuries is clearly not the version of the text that Wang Bi actually used. Given the tremendous influence that this important commentary has exerted for well over a millennium, the necessity of reconstructing the Laozi text that Wang Bi used is obvious. This book will provide a tremendous service to the field." - Joseph A. Adler, coauthor of Sung Dynasty Uses of the I Ching