Book Review: _The I Ching: A Biography_ by Richard Smith

[jbradfor]

[iSBN 978-0-691-14509-9].

[Well, more like book summary than review...]

This book provides a Western-view summary of the Yijing, starting with what is known (or believed to be known) about its creation and evolution, how it was used and perceived within China, and its influence in other Asian countries and in the West.

My knowledge of the Yijing was embarrassing small, most of it comes from references to it in (mostly counter-culture) American culture. I found this book to be an excellent summary, pretty much telling me as much as I wanted to know, but not too much. To my embarrassment, I really had no idea that the Yijing is considered to be part of the Confucian canon, and that it was used as a source of philosophy as much as, or more so, that as a method of fortune telling.

The writing style is not technical but academic. [shocking, I know, since this is published by Princeton Press.] A more-or-less random example of the writing style (page 55):

Han-style correlative thinking naturally centered heavily on the concepts of yin and yang, which, as indicated above, could accommodate any set of dual coordinates, from abstruse philosophical concepts such as nonbeing and being, to such mundane polarities as dark and light. Another important feature of correlative thinking, though somewhat more problematical in the minds of certain scholars, was an emphasis on the so-called five agents (also translated as elements, phase, activities, and so on), identified with the basic qualities or tendencies of earth (stability), mental (sharpness), fire (heat), water (coolness), and wood (growth).

It was a quick read, only 223 pages of text (small book, big font), and I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a brief summary of the Yijing.

Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com

Admin note: I've added Amazon affiliate links with the OP's permission, as I'm curious as to what clickthroughs / sales posts on here generate. I doubt it'll be much, but it might fund some free review copies of other books. Roddy.

[scoff]

For a quick and dirty primer on the I Ching, Lazlo Montgomery over at the China History Podcast has a brief introduction. I certainly learned a lot.

Easy and free way to gauge interest in the topic.

The I Ching