Early Chinese Religion ― Shang Through Han (1250 Bc-220 Ad)

Archeology, philosophy, divination, sacrifice, mythology, and many other fields are represented in these accounts of the cultural birth of China. The chronological sections cover Shang and Western Zhou 1250 to 771 BC, Eastern Zhou 770 to 256 BC, and Qin and Han 221 BC to 220 AD. Among the topics are Shang and Zhou funeral practices as revealed by material vestiges, Chinese history writing between the sacred and the secular, ritual practices for constructing terrestrial space in the Warring States and early Han, state and local cults in Han religion, and latter Han religious mass movements and the early Daoist church. The 24 papers were revised and translated from presentations at a December 2006 conference in Paris, and first published as Volume 21-1 in the series Handbook of Oriental Studies IV. The two volumes are paged and indexed together. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

John Lagerwey, Ph.D. Harvard University (1975), is Professor of the History of Daoism and Chinese religions at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris-Sorbonne). His primary publications concern the history of Daoist ritual and the ethnography of local society in southeastern China.Marc Kalinowski, Ph.D. University of Paris (1979), is Professor of Chinese thought and civilization at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Paris-Sorbonne). He publishes extensively on the history of divination and cosmology in ancient China, including Cosmologie et divination dans la Chine ancienne (Paris 1991), and Divination et societe dans la Chine medievale (Paris, 2003).