The Cultural History of Chinese Characters

Author: Kunihiko Fujishige
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-05-01
Features: This book, first published in 1971 by Iwanami Shoten in Japan, received the Julian Prize from the French Academy the following year. In 1991, it was included in Iwanami Shoten's "Contemporary Classics Collection" and republished. By the end of that year, Knowledge Publishing House released the Chinese edition of the book, which significantly influenced research in the academic field of Chinese characters. In 1990, the work was added to Japan's "Kodansha Academic Library" and issued in its third edition.
You use Chinese characters every day, but do you truly understand them? Do you know what Chinese characters looked like even earlier than oracle bone script? Do you know the original purpose of Chinese characters? Do you know the relationships among the four major scripts—clerical script, regular script, running script, and cursive script? Do you know how much effort and ( means "" in this context, which can be translated as "" or "prolonged and arduous") it took to evolve from characters carved on oracle bones and metal inscriptions to those written on bamboo slips, silk, paper, and finally printed on paper?
In this small book, Professor Kunihiko Fujishige, a renowned Japanese expert in Dunhuang studies, uses concise and flowing language along with over a hundred precious illustrations to vividly recount the 3,500-year development and evolution of Chinese characters. He connects the forms, systems, and preservation methods of the carriers of Chinese characters, making it an engaging read. These are some facts you may have heard of or perhaps never heard of, but they are knowledge you should definitely know.