'Anyone and everyone interested in the foundations of Chinese thought about law and legal institutions should applaud the publication of In Search of the Way by Wejen Chang. It is the culmination of a lifetime of learning and deep reflection by an extraordinary scholar, and replete with enormous insight and wisdom.' 'William P. Alford, Henry L. Stimson Professor of Law and Vice Dean for the Graduate Program and International Legal Studies, Harvard Law School' In their search for a just society what did the classic Chinese thinkers have to say about law as a norm? In a period of about five centuries before the Qin Dynasty (221-207 BCE), China went through dramatic social, economic and political changes. People were losing faith in the old norms and institutions and suffered disorientation, chaos and misery. Many intellectuals sought a resolution to this situation. Eight among them were the most diligent in this quest - Confucius, Laozi, Mozi, Zhuangzi, Mencius, Xunzi, Lord Shang and Han Fei. For them the key question was how philosophical thinking could help serve humanity and society in any way. The eight thinkers offered different answers and this book attempts to present their answers systematically and evaluate them according to reason and experience. These eight classical thinkers helped found the Confucian, the Daoist, the Mohist and the Legalist schools, whose ideas have guided China's development for over three millennia and still influence Chinese thinking and behaviour today. Here, Wejen Chang brings a fresh perspective to their theories to make more understandable the historical roots of law and the comparative lessons from such inquiry. Wejen Chang is one of only a few of his contemporaries to have had traditional Chinese education in his youth learning the Classics exclusively. He studied law and political science in Taiwan and received an LL.M. from Yale and an SJD from Harvard. Following research at Academia Sinica, Taiwan, he has taught Chinese legal history and jurisprudence in Taiwan (Taiwan University), China (Peking and Tsinghua universities), the US (UCLA, Harvard, NYU) and Europe (Collège de France, Leuven Catholic University). Cover image: iStockphoto.com. Characters translate as In Search of the Way Cover design: Michael Chatfield [EUP logo] www.euppublishing.com