PENGUIN CLASSICS : PENGUIN CLASSICS THE ANALECTS – CONFUCIUS

One of the most influential books in human history, in a revelatory new translation. China s first and greatest teacher, Confucius traveled from state to state as an itinerant philosopher. The Analects preserves his major teachings, as compiled by his disciples after his death – everything from how people should relate to each other (the Golden Rule, which he was the first to define), to how a country should be organized (like a family), to how to lie in bed (not like a corpse). This new translation, by one of the pre-eminent scholars of Confucius, draws on the most recent excavated texts and latest scholarship. The historian Annping Chin sets out to illuminate the historical context of Confucius s teachings, explaining who the many local figures referenced in The Analects are, and navigating a rich tradition of historical commentaries to provide a map of Confucian thought that brings us as close as possible to experiencing Confucius as his followers might have 2,500 years ago. Confucius (551-479 B.C.) was a philosopher, political figure and founder of one of the major schools of thought in Chinese history. Annping Chin is a senior lecturer in the history department at Yale and is the author of The Authentic Confucius: A Life of Thought and Politics and a coauthor, with Jonathan Spence, of The Chinese Century: A Photographic History of the Last Hundred Years. She lives in New Haven, Connecticut.