Kumazawa Banzan: Governing the Realm and Bringing Peace to All below Heaven

Kumazawa Banzan: Governing the Realm and Bringing Peace to All below Heaven
Author: Kumazawa Banzan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2020-11-26
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1108624219

Kumazawa Banzan's (1619-1691) Responding to the Great Learning (Daigaku wakumon) stands as the first major writing on political economy in early modern Japanese history. John A. Tucker's translation is the first English rendition of this controversial text to be published in eighty years. The introduction offers an accessible and incisive commentary, including detailed analyses of Banzan's text within the context of his life, as well as broader historical and intellectual developments in East Asian Confucian thought. Emphasizing parallels between Banzan's life events, such as his relief efforts in the Okayama domain following devastating flooding, and his later writings advocating compassionate government, environmental initiatives, and projects for growing wealth, Tucker sheds light on Banzan's main objective of 'governing the realm and bringing peace and prosperity to all below heaven'. In Responding to the Great Learning, Banzan was doing more than writing a philosophical commentary, he was advising the Tokugawa shogunate to undertake a major reorganization of the polity - or face the consequences.

Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Mencius

Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Mencius
Author: Yang Xiao
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 702
Release: 2023-04-11
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3031276205

This book is about the philosophical, historical, and interpretative aspects of Mencius. It explores his influence, reception, and relevance in China from the third century BCE to the present, as well as offers comparative studies of Mencius and major figures in the history of Chinese and Western philosophy. With 34 accessible articles written by leading philosophers and scholars, the Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Mencius provides both broad pictures and in-depth discussions regarding the work of one of the most important and influential Chinese philosophers. It covers his normative ethics, meta-ethics, political philosophy, epistemology and moral psychology. The last section of the volume, “Mencius and Western Philosophers: Comparative Perspectives,” explicitly puts him in dialogue with major Western philosophers. The Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Mencius serves as an essential volume for college students, graduate students, and scholars who study and teach Mencius as well as Chinese philosophy and comparative philosophy in general.​

The Essentials of Governance

The Essentials of Governance
Author: Wu Jing
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 442
Release: 2021-01-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1108912680

In the eighth century, Wu Jing selected exchanges between Emperor Taizong and his ministers that he deemed key to good governance. This collection of dialogues has been used for the education of emperors, political elites and general readers ever since, and is a standard reference work in East Asian political thought. Consisting of ten volumes, subdivided into forty topics, The Essentials of Governance addresses core themes of Chinese thinking about the politics of power, from the body politic, presenting and receiving criticism, recruitment, the education of the imperial clan, political virtues and vices, to cultural policy, agriculture, law, taxation, border policy, and how to avoid disaster and dynastic fall. Presented with introductory commentary that offers insights into its historical context and global reception, this accessible and reliable translation brings together ten scholars of Chinese intellectual history to offer a nuanced edition that preserves the organisation, tone and flow of the original.

Agricultural Ethics in East Asian Perspective

Agricultural Ethics in East Asian Perspective
Author: Paul B. Thompson
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 230
Release: 2018-07-24
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3319926039

This book brings together agricultural ethics scholars from the US, Japan and Taiwan to discuss crucial issues in agricultural ethics and sustainability ethics in comparative context. Agricultural ethics and sustainability ethics are wide-ranging and closely linked to environmental ethics, bioethics, virtue ethics, animal welfare, soil conservation, not to mention rural traditions and lifestyles. Six of the chapters cover historical traditions and values in Europe, the US and East Asia. Four of the chapters cover the role of virtue ethics in the analysis of agrarian and environmental ethics, agricultural biotechnology, food ethics, and alternative agriculture, respectively. Finally, two of the chapters cover field efforts of agricultural ethics involving preserving agricultural heritage and building consensus for sustainable farming, respectively. Although the papers are divided into three groups, their contents are interconnected and mutually informative.

The Political Thought of the Irish Revolution

The Political Thought of the Irish Revolution
Author: Richard Bourke
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 464
Release: 2022-05-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1108873774

The Irish Revolution was a pivotal moment of transition for Ireland, the United Kingdom, and British Empire. A constitutional crisis that crystallised in 1912 electrified opinion in Ireland whilst dividing politics at Westminster. Instead of settling these differences, the advent of the First World War led to the emergence of new antagonisms. Republican insurrection was followed by a struggle for independence along with the partition of the island. This volume assembles some of the key contributions to the intellectual debates that took place in the midst of these changes and displays the vital ideas developed by the men and women who made the Irish Revolution, as well as those who opposed it. Through these fundamental texts, we see Irish experiences in comparative European and international contexts, and how the revolution challenged the durability of Britain as a global power.

Medieval Muslim Mirrors for Princes

Medieval Muslim Mirrors for Princes
Author:
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 397
Release: 2022-12-31
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1108606164

The 'mirror for princes' genre of literature offers advice to a ruler, or ruler-to-be, concerning the exercise of royal power and the wellbeing of the body politic. This anthology presents selections from the 'mirror literature' produced in the Islamic Early Middle Period (roughly the tenth to twelfth centuries CE), newly translated from the original Arabic and Persian, as well as a previously translated Turkish example. In these texts, authors advise on a host of political issues which remain compelling to our contemporary world: political legitimacy and the ruler's responsibilities, the limits of the ruler's power and the limits of the subjects' duty of obedience, the maintenance of social stability, causes of unrest, licit and illicit uses of force, the functions of governmental offices and the status and rights of diverse social groups. Medieval Muslim Mirrors for Princes is a unique introduction to this important body of literature, showing how these texts reflect and respond to the circumstances and conditions of their era, and of ours.

Albert Venn Dicey: Writings on Democracy and the Referendum

Albert Venn Dicey: Writings on Democracy and the Referendum
Author: Albert Venn Dicey
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2023-02-16
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1108962637

What are the limits to parliamentary sovereignty? When should the people be able to vote directly on issues? The constitutional theorist Albert Venn Dicey (1835–1922) was a cogent advocate of the referendum. While his enthusiasm for the institution was widely acknowledged in his own day, thereafter this dimension of his career has been largely neglected. This fall into obscurity is partly explained by the fact that Dicey never collected his writings on referendums into a single volume. Consequently, during the prolonged crisis over Brexit, the implications of Dicey's thought were unclear, despite his standing as a foundational figure in British constitutional law. This timely modern edition brings together Dicey's sophisticated and intricate writings on the referendum, and it covers his attempts to construct a credible theory of democracy on a new intellectual and institutional basis. An original scholarly introduction analyzes Dicey's thought in light of its contemporary context.

Caliphate and Imamate

Caliphate and Imamate
Author: Hassan Ansari
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2023-10-31
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1108247172

One of the most enduring sources of conflict among Muslims is the question of power and authority after the Prophet Muhammad. This anthology of classical Arabic texts, presented in a new English translation, succinctly presents competing views on the prerequisites of legitimate leadership and authority in the Islamic tradition.

Volney: The Ruins of Empires and Catechism of Natural Law

Volney: The Ruins of Empires and Catechism of Natural Law
Author: Constantin Volney
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2024-02-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108493106

Fresh, modern translation of a major French Revolutionary text, which argues for popular sovereignty in the form of a dream-tale.