Ancient Greece and China Compared

Description

Ancient Greece and China Compared is a pioneering, methodologically sophisticated set of studies, bringing together scholars who all share the conviction that the sustained critical comparison and contrast between ancient societies can bring to light significant aspects of each that would be missed by focusing on just one of them. The topics tackled include key issues in philosophy and religion, in art and literature, in mathematics and the life sciences (including gender studies), in agriculture, city planning and institutions. The volume also analyses how to go about the task of comparing, including finding viable comparanda and avoiding the trap of interpreting one culture in terms appropriate only to another. The book is set to provide a model for future collaborative and interdisciplinary work exploring what is common between ancient civilisations, what is distinctive of particular ones, and what may help to account for the latter.

G. E. R. Lloyd is Emeritus Professor of Ancient Philosophy and Science at the University of Cambridge, Former Master of Darwin College, Cambridge, and Senior Scholar in Residence at the Needham Research Institute, Cambridge. He is the author of twenty-two books and editor of four, and was knighted for 'services to the history of thought' in 1997. Jingyi Jenny Zhao is Lloyd-Dan David Research Fellow at the Needham Research Institute and at Darwin College, Cambridge. Qiaosheng Dong is currently affiliated to the Cambridge Peking University China Centre at Jesus College.