BiblioVault - Books about Persuasions

Legends of the Warring States

Persuasions, Romances, and Stories from Chan-kuo Ts'e

J. I. Crump

University of Michigan Press, 1998

The origins of the Chan-kuo Ts’e (Intrigues of the warring states) as an entity can be traced to a palace librarian at the Han Court, Liu Hsiang (76–6 BCE), who compiled and edited the pre-Han texts (c. 300–221 BCE) into a single volume and gave the collection a name. Thereafter, surviving manuscripts show the Chan-kuo Ts’e circulated during the Later Han Dynasty. Sometime during the years of decline and following the fall of the Han Dynasty, the Chan-kuo Ts’e began to acquire the aura of a wicked book, somewhat analogous to Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince. From time to time it was seen as one of a number of books that could unlock immense power in an era characterized both by widespread illiteracy and common belief in literacy and scholarship as the best if not the only vehicle to any goal. After 400 CE, there is no record of the text until it was reconstructed by an 11th-century scholar, Tseng Kung, who formed a model for critical circulation for the next nine centuries.

This volume presents selections and commentary by the premier Western translator and interpreter of the Chan-kuo Ts'e—ninety pieces singled out for their literary sophistication and sprightliness of conception. It also features more complete warring states narratives, the “romances”—persuasions of four of the best-known figures, Fan Chü, Chang Yi, Su Ch'in, and Ch'un-shen Chün, augmented by biographical material from the Shi-chi. This reader highlights both the nature of Chan-kuo Ts'e, an important pre-Han collection, and its considerable pleasures.

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Persuasions Of Fall

Ann Lauinger

University of Utah Press, 2004

The Agha Shahid Ali Prize in Poetry was inaugurated in 2003 to honor the late poet, a nationally recognized author of numerous collections of poetry and a former professor at the University of Utah, and is sponsored by the University of Utah Press and the University of Utah Department of English. In Persuasion of Fall, the first prizewinning volume of the annual competition, Ann Lauinger celebrates the quotidian in ways that are wise, uncompromising, and sometimes sly in their playfulness.

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Persuasions of the Witch’s Craft

Ritual Magic in Contemporary England

T. M. Luhrmann

Harvard University Press, 1989

To find out why reasonable people are drawn to the seemingly bizarre practices of magic and witchcraft, Tanya Luhrmann immersed herself in the secret lives of Londoners who call themselves magicians. She came to know them as friends and equals and was initiated into various covens and magical groups. She explains the process through which once-skeptical individuals—educated, middle-class people, frequently of high intelligence—become committed to the ideas behind witchcraft and find magical ritual so compellingly persuasive. This intriguing book draws some disturbing conclusions about the ambivalence of belief within modern urban society.

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