This fascinating and revealing study reaches back into ancient Chinese history, before and up to the time of Confucius, and provides a large, complex historical background to the birth of his ideas. When looking at the world of more than 4000 years ago, legend and historical record often merge, and Theism or Egoism unpacks how some of the foundations of modern-day Chinese culture and philosophy were laid down. During this period, humanism and Confucianism started to emerge as a cultural counterbalance to more ancient traditional religion and mythology. This book's scholarly interpretation of ancient Chinese history and myth will be of interest to all historians, and researchers in Chinese and Asian Studies worldwide.
