Customer Reviews

Ancestral Landscape: Time, Space, and Community in Late Shang China, Ca. 1200-1045 B.C (China Research Monograph 53)

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Keightley, one of the top Western scholars in this field, has produced a must-read with this exploration of everything the oracle bone divination contents can tell us about the lives and environment of the Shang world, including agriculture, time and the calendar, the Shang territory, capital and its environs, foreign relations, and religious life. On each topic, Keightley presents phrases found in the oracle bone inscriptions, directly translated graph for graph into modern Chinese characters, then presents his translation into English, and a discussion. His style is lucid, his scholarship keen. There are eight figures with rubbings of actual oracle bones in the rear, but other than this, all the contents of the divinations are presented only in modern, traditional graphs, which is a bit disappointing for those like me who would very much like to see the oracle bone versions of the graphs for each phrase. Nevertheless, highly recommended.

Kneightly does a VERY impressive job showing you what the Shang Dynasty was like. He extrapolates what the soceity's daily lfe, crops, religion, government and even what they ate from their jiaguwen (oracle bones).

A little dry in places, but the vast cites sources and footnotes help add more perspective and understanding to the overall work. If you're a history buff interested in ancient ancient Chinese history THIS IS FOR YOU!

If you want to really know about the earliest Chinese writing during the Shang Dynasty (1200-1045 BC), then this book is a must read for you. It is NOT for the casual reader, but rather is another book from an author who is perhaps the leading expert on translating and understanding ancient Chinese characters. They say that the truth is in the details and if so, then this scholarly book by Dr. Keightly is certainly the truth about life in early China. On a personal note, I have used this book to help me translate some of the early Chinese writing on oracle bones, jade, and bronze Chinese artifacts in my collection. This short book of only 200 pages contains an extensive Bibliography for those experts who what to dive even further into the Shang Community.

I haven't read this book, but I just wanted to mention that "Sources of Chinese Tradition" compiled by deBary and Bloom has a chapter of about twenty pages by Keightley discussing the oracle bone inscriptions. It might serve as an introduction for those with only a slight interest--especially as "The Ancestral Landscape" becomes harder to buy--and is usually available for pretty cheap. (I have the second edition, so double check to make sure the first edition has this chapter too!)

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