Ancient Greece and China Compared

A pioneering, methodologically sophisticated set of studies describing and analysing key aspects of ancient Greek and Chinese civilisations.

G. E. R. Lloyd (Edited by), Jingyi Jenny Zhao (Edited by), Qiaosheng Dong (With)

9781107086661, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 January 2018

446 pages
25.4 x 18 x 2.4 cm, 1.05 kg

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.

Introduction G. E. R. Lloyd
Part I. Methodological Issues and Goals: 1. Why some comparisons make more difference than others Nathan Sivin
2. Comparing comparisons Walter Scheidel
3. On the very idea of (philosophical?) translation Robert Wardy
Part II. Philosophy and Religion: 4. Freedom in parts of the Zhuangzi and Epictetus R. A. H. King
5. Shame and moral education in Aristotle and Xunzi Jingyi Jenny Zhao
6. Human and animal in early China and Greece Lisa Raphals
7. Genealogies of ghosts, gods and humans: the capriciousness of the Divine in early Greece and China Michael Puett
Part III. Art and Literature: 8. Visual art and historical representation in Ancient Greece and China Jeremy Tanner
9. Helen and Chinese femmes fatales Yiqun Zhou
Part IV. Mathematics and Life Sciences: 10. Divisions, big and small: comparing Archimedes and Liu Hui Reviel Netz
11. Abstraction as a value in the historiography of mathematics in Ancient Greece and China Karine Chemla
12. Recipes for love in the ancient world Vivienne Lo and Eleanor Re'em
Part V. Agriculture, Planning and Institutions: 13. From the harvest to the meal in prehistoric China and Greece: a comparative approach to the social context of food Xinyi Liu, Evi Margaritis and Martin Jones
14. On libraries and manuscript culture in Western Han Chang'an and Alexandria Michael Nylan
Afterword Michael Loewe.

Subject Areas: Classical history / classical civilisation [HBLA1], Asian history [HBJF], European history [HBJD]