Wang Guowei's Classic Writings

Author: Wang Guowei
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-11-01
Features: The authors of this series are all distinguished masters of Chinese classics, Western philosophy, thinkers, and writers who have made outstanding contributions to human civilization. Their thoughts and works are invaluable treasures in the spiritual wealth of humanity. In today's era of "quick reading culture," the release of this series provides high-quality spiritual nourishment for readers, especially young students, and holds significant positive social value. The planning of this series is ingenious and distinctive. It differs from the complete translations of "Translated Classics" by the Commercial Press and also from the evaluation-style books published by other publishers, which only contain evaluations without the original texts. Based on in-depth analysis and research of a large number of complete works, the editors repeatedly compared and selected the most classic and readable content. Each master is featured in a separate volume, each with an introductory preface in a guide-like style, a biographical chronology, and a chronological table of works. The annotations are precise, aiming to achieve the goals of "popularization" and "enlightenment." Readers can choose what they like and need to comprehensively read and understand the masters within a limited time. The series features elegant design, striving for a perfect unity of content and form. The first five volumes were awarded the 2002 National University Press Book Cover Design Gold Award.
As a renowned scholar in modern China, Wang Guowei (1877-1927) excelled in the fields of literature, history, and philosophy for decades. He was not only an early pioneer in applying Western philosophical, aesthetic, and literary perspectives to the criticism of Chinese classical literature but also an innovator in Chinese history who combined historical studies with archaeology, establishing many systematic standards and methods for modern historiography. His life can be broadly divided into three stages: early research on Western philosophy (such as Kant), middle-period studies of Song and Yuan literature, and later research on Chinese ancient history, each yielding significant achievements. Particularly in the study of Chinese ancient history, guided by the "dual evidence method," he achieved remarkable results and earned widespread acclaim in academia. His contemporaries once called Wang Guowei the "culminating figure of Chinese academic thought in the past three centuries and the pioneering figure of the past eighty years." Liang Qichao highly praised him as a scholar "not only belonging to China but also to the world."