A History of Chinese Legal Studies (3 Volumes)

Author: He Qinhua
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2006-08-01
Features: Since the first and second volumes of this book were published in October 2000, they have received praise from readers and recognition from the academic community. In 2002, they won the First Prize of Shanghai Philosophy and Social Sciences Outstanding Works Award, and in 2004, they received the Third Prize of the Ministry of Education's Humanities and Social Sciences Outstanding Achievement Award. Therefore, for this reedition, apart from correcting a few typos and supplementing certain content, no major changes have been made in terms of text editing. The most significant changes in this reedition are the addition of 362 pictures related to the textual content. Some of these pictures were collected by the author from various published documents in recent years, while others were obtained through photoreproduction from libraries such as the National Library of China, Peking University Library, China University of Political Science and Law Library, Shanghai Library, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences Library, East China Normal University Library, Tokyo University Library, and the Law Department Library of Tokyo University. The author has provided detailed explanations in the "Illustration Index" at the end of the book for all references to others' work. This reedition of the book has also received full support from the President and Editor-in-Chief of Legal Publishing House, Mr. Huang Min. At the same time, Mr. Jiang Hao directly planned this reedition in a way that combines text and illustrations. The book's editor-in-chief, Dong Yanbin, has put in tremendous effort in the editing and publishing of this book. The author expresses heartfelt gratitude to all of them. As for any errors or shortcomings that may still exist in this book, the author takes full responsibility and sincerely requests the readers to criticize and correct them.
Regarding the current state of research on the history of Chinese jurisprudence, the introduction and preface of this book first explore questions such as whether there was jurisprudence in ancient China, whether the study of laws could represent ancient Chinese jurisprudence, what forms ancient Chinese jurisprudence took, and what its connotations and extensions were. Additionally, they examine the differences between ancient Chinese jurisprudence and Western or modern jurisprudence. From the to the sixth chapter, the book describes the process of the emergence, development, prosperity, maturity, and decline of ancient Chinese jurisprudence, elaborates on the characteristics of ancient Chinese jurisprudence at each stage of its development, and its influence on neighboring countries. Finally, the book discusses why ancient Chinese jurisprudence inevitably declined and its position in the history of Chinese and world academia. Although there is still a blank in the overall research on the history of Chinese jurisprudence both domestically and internationally, the significant success in the study of Chinese intellectual and philosophical history in recent years, along with numerous achievements in the study of Chinese legal history and the history of Chinese legal thought, as well as the collation, annotation, and translation of a large number of ancient classics, have provided rich material for the writing of this book. If this book has made any contribution to the development of Chinese academia, it is merely to organize and sort out the rich legal heritage of China from a new perspective—jurisprudence history—building upon the achievements of predecessors and peers, and to draw some new viewpoints and conclusions. Moreover, it has conducted preliminary explorations in the system, content, and some basic concepts of the history of Chinese jurisprudence.