Reviewed by Andrew Burstein | Book Review | The William and Mary Quarterly, 64.4

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the WMQ online. About 668 words from this article are provided below; about 2681 words remain.

If you are a individual subscriber to the William and Mary Quarterly, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a subscriber to the William and Mary Quarterly, you can:: • subscribe here.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the William and Mary Quarterly (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the William and Mary Quarterly.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

Reviewed by Andrew Burstein | Book Review | The William and Mary Quarterly, 64.4 | The History Cooperative

Reviews of Books

Jefferson in Confucian Relief

Andrew Burstein, University of Tulsa

Jiefeixun quan zhuan (A Complete Biography of Thomas Jefferson). By Liu Zuochang. 2 vols. Ji'nan (Shandong), People's Republic of China: Qilu Publishers, 2005. 1703 pages.
In the early 1990s, I had the pleasure of spending two days in the company of the late Liu Zuochang (1921–2006), China's foremost Jefferson lover. As a graduate student at the University of Virginia, while making the transition from a good many years as a China specialist to the study of Jeffersonian America, I gave him a private tour of Monticello. Later we exchanged letters and I sent him some books. We discussed Chinese politics and whether China might some day adopt democratic institutions. Liu was not forward and fiery but reserved and scholarly in his consideration of political democracy, yet his was a generation that grew up amid a long and bloody struggle for nationhood; one can only imagine how acutely he felt Thomas Jefferson's epigrammatic statement: "I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."¹	1
Liu translates these lines with relish in the preface to his careercrowning, two-volume 2005 Chinese-language biography of Jefferson (not available in English); in Chinese, the two characters xin ling, literally "heart and spirit" (sometimes translated as "soul"), stand in for "mind of man." Jefferson's words read powerfully in the naturally evocative Chinese language, addressing the tortured soul of any subjugated people. Chinese Americanists now consider Liu's biography the most significant piece of Chinese scholarship ever written on early America.	2
For most of the past twenty-five years, scholars inside the People's Republic of China have relied on secondary sources that are dated, at best, in their attempts to assess the history of the United States. Additionally, although for years Western scholars of traditional China have been drawing on original documents in Chinese archives and writing works that have impressed Chinese scholars, decades of intense political upheaval meant that there was only sporadic publication on any American historical topic that was not propagandistic. And there was little scholarship on early America before that which Liu Zuochang was able to do in the latter stages of his career. Early America has been the least accessible area for Chinese graduate students—and there are many—who would like to go into greater and more objective depth. Today, at two northern Chinese universities in particular, scholars are engaged in exploring the founding era in American history. Students and professors at Beijing University and Nankai University, in Tianjin, use online resources as much as possible; in the last year, a few university libraries have gained access to JSTOR. These scholars are beginning to ask deep questions, and though they are not yet producing sophisticated scholarship Liu's work represents a starting point for twenty-firstcentury Chinese hoping to follow his interests.	3
Liu felt Jefferson could represent something nobler than the scientific racist and ideologue he typically suggests these days in the United States. To understand Liu's Jefferson, however, it is important to understand the context in which the Chinese author worked and lived, without which his devotion to the American Founder seems simply naive and filiopietistic. In the opening pages of the biography, Liu writes at length about his own upbringing and what drew him to the study of history. He was the son of a hardworking secondary school teacher who steadily instructed him in the lessons of the past. His father "bore no mercy" toward the evil figures in Chinese history and "could not stop talking about" the good ones. It was not enough to have principles, young Liu was made to understand; one had to live by them. And so Liu learned from his father to admire Confucian intellectuals of the past who exhibited virtuous character and stood above political contention. In general he learned to take up history and biography as a means to study moral character.	. . .

There are about 2681 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.