| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.3

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Asia

Anthony DeBlasi. Reform in the Balance: The Defense of Literary Culture in Mid-Tang China. (SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture.) Albany: State University of New York Press. 2002. Pp. viii, 214. Cloth $57.50, paper $18.95.

Earlier generations of intellectual historians have tended to view Tang dynasty (618–907) political and cultural debates merely as precursors to the later development of Neo-Confucianism. More generally, Ming, Qing, and modern readings of China's early cultural history are based on interpretive assumptions that make many aspects of Tang dynasty writings "illegible": the words are the same, but the cultural system in which the texts are embedded is so different that translation fails. Anthony DeBlasi's short book is important both because he clarifies central issues in mid-Tang cultural debates and because, in presenting his case, he offers the reader a glimpse into the richness of the imaginative universe of the medieval Chinese elite. DeBlasi correctly insists that writings on literature, education, politics, and ethics by major mid-Tang cultural figures present a deeply interconnected and (more or less) coherent system worthy of intellectual historical inquiry.

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