Opening the Pass
Tags
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Students of literature and history specializing in pre-Qin thinkers and Legalism
- General readers interested in the origins of Chinese political thought
- Organizers preparing seminars or reading groups on intellectual history
- Readers who enjoy close reading of short classical texts, sentence by sentence
Not a good fit for
- Readers who prefer light, narrative reading and have little patience for classical Chinese
- Those who want a full picture of Shang Yang's reforms without reading the original
- Readers strongly opposed to Legalist thought who would find it hard to read fairly
Reading tips
- Read through once for the gist, then work through the annotations paragraph by paragraph to trace the argument of "opening and blocking."
- Mark sentences on historical change and institutional reform, and consider their contemporary thrust.
- Read alongside other chapters of The Book of Lord Shang or relevant passages of Mencius to compare Confucian and Legalist positions.
- After finishing, summarize the main thesis in your own words to test whether you have grasped the argument's main line.
About the publisher
Bashu Publishing House is a publisher centered on collating and publishing classical Chinese cultural texts, with its main publishing areas covering classical literature, Eastern philosophy, ancient poetry, and educational classics. Its library currently holds 1,075 titles, including representative works such as Dream of the Red Chamber, the Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Gathering, Renjian Cihua, and Out to the Frontier, involving authors such as Cao Xueqin, Wang Xizhi, Wang Guowei, Wang Changling, Liu Xie, and Yan Yu. These reflect the publisher's focus on literary classics, poetry criticism, and philosophical readings. Its publishing character lies in working around ancient texts and canonical works, with attention to textual collation and presentation. Public information on its more detailed publishing background and series plans is limited; this introduction is based only on the library's book information.
Contents
- 版权信息
- 开塞第七
FAQ
Is "Opening and Blocking" a chapter of The Book of Lord Shang?
Can readers with no grounding in classical Chinese understand this book?
What should I keep in mind when reading "Opening and Blocking"?
Comments
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About the author
Anonymous is not a real personal name but a general Chinese designation for authors whose names are unknown, lost, or unsigned. Neither nationality nor dates of birth and death can be verified, and available public information is limited, so the works attributed to this name are the only basis for description. The collection holds 2,078 works under Anonymous, spanning medicine, classics, historical readings, ancient poetry, classical literature, and philosophy. Representative works include The Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon: Lingshu, Mencius, The Book of Documents, Nineteen Old Poems, Complete Song Ci, and The Peacock Flies Southeast. Most of these works took shape through long transmission and editing, emerging either from collective folk creation or from authors whose names were lost over time. In ancient China, the Book of Songs, the Great Learning, and many popular storybooks and plays were signed Anonymous because their authors could not be traced. Anonymous works cross the classics, histories, philosophical writings, medical texts, and poetry; their subjects are broad, and their styles vary from archaic simplicity to clear naturalness, making them important and influential sources for understanding ancient Chinese thought, medicine, and literature.
