Genealogy of the Way: The Construction and Uses of the Confucian Tradition in Late Imperial China - Hardcover

by Thomas A. Wilson (Author)

Beginning in the late Southern Sung one sect of Confucianism gradually came to dominate literati culture and, by the Ming dynasty, was canonized as state orthodoxy. This book is a historical and textual critique of the construction of an ideologically exclusionary conception of the Confucian tradition, and how claims to possession of the truth-the Tao-came to serve power.

Back Jacket

While setting out his task as that of tracing the role of anthologies in the creation and interpretation of an orthodox Confucian tradition, Wilson's book goes far beyond this to provide a comprehensive overview of the debates and discourses about the 'correct line' in the development of Confucian thought from . . . the Han through . . . the Qing.--Journal of Asian Studies