Evidence from Shang oracle bones to memorials submitted to Western Han emperors attests to a long-lasting debate in early China over the proper relationship between humans and gods. One pole of the debate saw the human and divine realms as separate and agonistic and encouraged divination to determine the will of the gods and sacrifices to appease and influence them. The opposite pole saw the two realms as related and claimed that humans could achieve divinity and thus control the cosmos. This wide-ranging book reconstructs this debate and places within their contemporary contexts the rival claims concerning the nature of the cosmos and the spirits, the proper demarcation between the human and the divine realms, and the types of power that humans and spirits can exercise. It is often claimed that the worldview of early China was unproblematically monistic and that hence China had avoided the tensions between gods and humans found in the West. By treating the issues of cosmology, sacrifice, and self-divinization in a historical and comparative framework that attends to the contemporary significance of specific arguments, Michael J. Puett shows that the basic cosmological assumptions of ancient China were the subject of far more debate than is generally thought.

This book traces the evolving uses of writing to command assent and obedience in early China, an evolution that culminated in the establishment of a textual canon as the foundation of imperial authority. Its central theme is the emergence of this body of writings as the textual double of the state, and of the text-based sage as the double of the ruler. The book examines the full range of writings employed in early China, such as divinatory records, written communications with ancestors, government documents, the collective writings of philosophical and textual traditions, speeches attributed to historical figures, chronicles, verse anthologies, commentaries, and encyclopedic compendia. Lewis shows how these writings served to administer populations, control officials, form new social groups, invent new models of authority, and create an artificial language whose mastery generated power and whose graphs became potent objects. Writing and Authority in Early China traces the enterprise of creating a parallel reality within texts that depicted the entire world. These texts provided models for the invention of a world empire, and one version ultimately became the first state canon of imperial China. This canon served to perpetuate the dream and the reality of the imperial system across the centuries.

This revealing book challenges longstanding notions of the Qin dynasty, China s first imperial dynasty (221 206 BCE). The received history of the Qin dynasty and its founder is one of cruel tyranny with rule through fear and coercion. Using a wealth of new information afforded by the expansion of Chinese archaeology in recent decades as well as traditional historical sources, Charles Sanft concentrates on cooperative aspects of early imperial government, especially on the communication necessary for government. Sanft suggests that the Qin authorities sought cooperation from the populace with a publicity campaign in a wide variety of media from bronze and stone inscriptions to roads to the bureaucracy. The book integrates theory from anthropology and economics with early Chinese philosophy and argues that modern social science and ancient thought agree that cooperation is necessary for all human societies."

Intellectual developments of the Western Han dynasty (202 BCE – 9 CE) have been studied hitherto on the assumptions that a system described as ‘Confucianism’ acquired paramount importance and that Dong Zhongshu (ca. 198 to ca. 107 BCE) had been responsible for formulating its principles. In challenging these assumptions, this book examines Dong’ career and reputation, and his supposed authorship of the Chunqiu fanlu, for long subject to question. It is concluded that while some parts of that text may well represent the teachings that Dong Zhongshu promoted, some may perhaps date from as late as 79 CE; still others bear an affinity to writings which, banned as being suspect or potentially subversive, survive in no more than fragmentary form.

《汉语流传欧洲史》讲述了：汉语的历史源远流长，汉语的对外传播史也堪称悠久漫长。可以想像，商周秦汉王朝在征服异族、统一国家、拓展疆域的过程中，必然伴随着汉语的推广和汉文化的传播。魏晋至唐宋不仅是中国社会架构转型的重要时期，也是中华文化主体生成的关键阶段，几乎在广纳外来语言和文化的同时，中国也向世界展示了本土语言文化的非凡魅力和持久张力。由于国力鼎盛、文化强势，这一时期的汉语传播力度无疑十分强劲。据史料记载，唐代居留中国的蕃民、胡商和胡奴不仅数量庞大，而且种族繁杂，这些人显然是当时学习汉语、使用汉语、传播汉语的生力军。不过，当时的汉语传播尽管声势赫赫，但波及范围以今天的眼光来看，并不太广，主要限于东亚、东南亚、中亚和西亚地区。另外，这个时期的汉语对外传播似乎只是一种单纯的语言传习，我们几乎看不到当时域外人士进行汉语分析的资料。史料显示，汉魏六朝的佛经译者大多是胡僧，但他们对梵语的特点往往津津乐道，而对汉语的特点则似乎有点漠然置之。

This study aims to engage the textual realities of medieval literature by shedding light on the material lives of poems during the Tang, from their initial oral or written instantiation through their often lengthy and twisted paths of circulation. Tang poems exist today in stable written forms assumed to reflect their creators' original intent. Yet Tang poetic culture was based on hand-copied manuscripts and oral performance. We have almost no access to this poetry as it was experienced by contemporaries. This is no trivial matter, the author argues. If we do not understand how Tang people composed, experienced, and transmitted this poetry, we miss something fundamental about the roles of memory and copying in the circulation of poetry as well as readers' dynamic participation in the creation of texts. We learn something different about poems when we examine them, not as literary works transcending any particular physical form, but as objects with distinct physical attributes, visual and sonic. The attitudes of the Tang audience toward the stability of texts matter as well. Understanding Tang poetry requires acknowledging that Tang literary culture accepted the conscious revision of these works by authors, readers, and transmitters.

汉文化圈的形成，其核心是东亚文明。尽管在汉文化圈中有着不同的国家和民族，但人们内心的感受方式、道德观念、知识结构等，往往是根据某些基本原则而展开。作为其载体，就是今天在中国、朝鲜—韩国、日本和越南等地所大量存在的汉籍，站在中国的立场，把中国以外所存在的汉籍称作“域外汉籍”。将汉字材料作为一个整体，就是以汉文化圈为方法的文献基础。将中国、朝鲜—韩国、日本、越南等地的汉籍文献放在同等的地位上，对待各类汉文献，寻求其间的内在关系，揭示其同中之异和异中之同。收入本书的九篇论文，可分做三组：第一组论文由《东亚文化意象的形成与变迁》、《汉文学史上的1764年》和《朝鲜时代女性诗文集编纂流传的文化史考察》构成，体现出了综合研究，代表了作者的努力方向和追求目标；第二组论文由《论唐代的诗学畅销书》、《“宾贡”小考》、《李钰〈百家诗话抄〉小考》和《廓门贯彻〈注石门文字禅〉谫论》构成，属于专题研究；第三组由《从朝鲜书目看汉籍交流》和《朝鲜时代女性诗文集解题》构成，属于文献学范畴。

《古书新辨：先秦出土文献与传世文献相对照研究》文主要运用中国的新出土文献进行相关研究，涉及到中国的思想史、历史、文字学、文献学等各种领域。
《古书新辨：先秦出土文献与传世文献相对照研究》绪论，通过重新探讨王国维“二重证据法”来表明自己的研究方法、学问观，并为了作为“科学”的历史学者共同追求、探讨真实而写作了《我们应该如何运用出土文献？——王国维“二重证据法”的不可证伪性》一文。《古书新辨：先秦出土文献与传世文献相对照研究》一编是运用郭店楚简、上博楚简《缁衣》重新探讨《礼记》四篇（《中庸》、《表记》、《坊记》、《缁衣》）与《子思子》的关系。第二编是出土文献《周易》的文字、语言研究的部分成果。第三编是对出土文献《老子》的研究。一、二章运用统计学的方法对郭店楚简《老子》三本、《太一生水》和《语丛四》的抄写者的关系进行分析，主要批判书法、笔迹鉴定等方面的脆弱性。第三章主要探讨成立北大汉简《老子》中所见“《老子》上经”、“《老子》下经”这一标题的问题。第四编主要运用上博楚简《民之父母》，探讨《礼记·孔子闲居》的成书过程。《古书新辨：先秦出土文献与传世文献相对照研究》第五编是有关上博楚简《鬼神之明》的研究，这章主要从表达、逻辑方法的角度来分析其出土文献的所属学派。《古书新辨：先秦出土文献与传世文献相对照研究》第六编研究上博楚简《郑子家丧》，并与《左传》、《史记》等传世文献进行比较，探讨其文献性质和所属学派。