In Singapore, Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and other parts of East and Southeast Asia, as well as China, people are asking, "What does Confucianism have to offer today?" For some, Confucius is still the symbol of a reactionary and repressive past; for others, he is the humanist admired by generations of scholars and thinkers, East and West, for his ethical system and discipline. In the face of such complications, only a scholar of Theodore de Bary's stature could venture broad answers to the question of the significance of Confucianism in today's world.

It is a pleasure to read a book by a fine scholar who is not distracted from his discussion of the evolution of Confucianism from the time of Confucius himself (who drew on earlier traditions) by the trouble Confucianists had, and created, over the millennia. Gu Jiegang, who said we should study one Confucius at a time--he changed from a historical figure to a mythological one (even a magician) and a sage--would have liked this book.
-- Asian Studies Review

• Contents 
• Preface
• 1 
• Sage-Kings and Prophets
• 2 
• The Noble Man in the Analects
• 3 
• Imperial Sages and Confucian Noble Men
• 4 
• Autocracy and the Prophetic Message in Orthodox Neo-Confucianism
• 5 
• Fang Tung-shu, a Prophetic Voice in the Early Modern Age
• 6 
• The Prophet and the People
• Notes
• Works Cited
• Index