Written on Bamboo and Silk: The Beginnings of Chinese Books and Inscriptions by Tsuen-Hsuin Tsien, Edward L. Shaughnessy (Afterword)

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Synopsis

Paleography, which often overlaps with archaeology, deciphers ancient inscriptions and modes of writing to reveal the knowledge and workings of earlier societies. In this now-classic paleographic study of China, Tsuen-Hsuin Tsien traces the development of Chinese writing from the earliest inscriptions to the advent of printing, with specific attention to the tools and media used. Now expanded and updated, this edition includes material that treats the many major documents and ancient Chinese artifacts uncovered over the forty years since the book's first publication. Substantial contributions from Edward L. Shaughnessy, including a new afterword, complete this long-awaited second edition.

Written on Bamboo and Silk—the only book of its kind available in English—has long been considered a landmark in its field. Critical in this regard is the excavation of numerous sites throughout China, where hundreds of thousands of documents written on bamboo and silk—as well as other media—were found, including some of the earliest copies of historical, medical, astronomical, military, and religious texts that are now essential to the study of early Chinese literature, history, and philosophy. Discoveries such as these have made the amount of material evidence on the origins and evolution of communication throughout Chinese history exceedingly broad and rich, and yet Tsien succeeds in tackling it all and building on the earlier classic work that changed the course of study and understanding of Chinese paleography.

Biography

Tsuen-Hsuin Tsien is a professor emeritus of Chinese studies and curator emeritus of the East Asian Library at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Paper and Printing.

Edward L. Shaughnessy is the Lorraine J. and Herrlee G. Creel Professor in Early Chinese Studies at the University of Chicago, author of China: Empire and Civilization and Before Confucius, and former editor of the journal Early China.