Ten Essays on Tradition: Institutions, Culture and Changes in Local Society

Introduction

"Ten Essays on Tradition" is the product of the third stage of the famous historian Qin Hui's academic career in studying "traditional society" (society before modern times). Since its publication, it has been reprinted many times and has been highly praised by readers.

This reprint adds a revised preface and two appendices ("Discussion on the Integration of Western and Confucianism and Deconstructing the Complementarity of Buddhism and Taoism" and "The Swiss Road" written by the author after an investigation in the "Forest Canton" region of Switzerland), which will help readers deepen their understanding of related important issues.

"Ten Essays on Tradition" was once listed as a reference book for the French National Chinese Proficiency Examination.

This book contains a series of articles, including an analysis of the evolution of "keywords" such as "anti-feudalism" and "equality" in the course of history and culture, but more importantly, a structural study of traditional society and culture itself. The author is dissatisfied with the "tenancy myth" and "clan myth" that were popular in the past, and advocates grasping the truly prescriptive rules of the traditional era in the synthesis and integration of social-economic analysis and ideological-cultural analysis, jumping out of the traditional view of "anti-Confucianism" and "respecting Confucianism", and getting rid of the traditional shackles of the big community in social structure and moving towards civil society. In the cultural-symbolic symbol system, it advocates "the integration of Western Confucianism and the deconstruction of the complementarity of law and Taoism", and using the personality resources of "helping the world when poor and improving oneself when rich" and the modern institutional arrangements of democratic constitutionalism and human rights protection to eliminate the personality defects of the complementarity of power and cynicism under the autocratic system.