A Short History of Chinese Philosophy

I’ve only dipped into the book so far, but I like the accessible way in which the author explains things. I’m looking forward to reading this from cover to cover.

Fung covers Chinese Philosophy from the Zhou to the 20th century. No doubt the details and discussion are lost in such a feat, but this book is still one of the first you should read on the subject. It covers the notable schools and philosophers in just enough detail to see the progression of thought. Chapters are focused but make sure to include important influences and side notes.No, this book is not authoritative and it is Fung's interpretation, but a generally reliable one. You'll have to read other texts to supplement your knowledge, but that is to be expected. 100% worth it and 5 stars considering the value I received from this overview of Chinese thought.

If this is the short history, the full history must be used in Olympic weightliftingThis is the closest I’ve yet encountered to Bertrand Russell’s history of western philosophy and is more easily readableYou don’t need a particular interest in eastern philosophy to find this essential

I had countless people recommend this book to me. After reading about this book, a native chinese friend of mine jokingly said 'you know more about chinese philosophy than most chinese'This book is about as exhaustive as it gets. It covers the entire history of Chinese philosophy from the warring states period to the years immediately following WW2. Despite all this it's about 400 pages and is pretty easy to read. I finished it in a few days. It's weird calling a book on philosophy a 'page turner' but it kind of is.The author is a chinese philosopher. He really understands the nuances of both western and eastern thought. He has a good, readerly prose style and embeds his exposition with lots of fun stories. Some of these stories are philosophical in nature, others are from history.He constantly compares and contrasts all of the different philosophies to one another, creating a cohesive narrative that helps tie everything together. He also ties things into the material and historical conditions that these philosophies arose in. While chinese history isn't the focus of this book, I ended up learning a lot about chinese history in the process.I learned analytic philosophy in uni and a bit of continental philosophy. Reading this helped to rewire my brain a bit and develop a more holistic way of thinking that stands in contrast to the more reductive approach of western philosophy. In the last chapter the author discusses what a good synergy between eastern and western thought looks like.I recommend this to basically everyone, but especially those familiar with western philosophy who want to see what they've missed out on.

This text provides answers to the questions I have at the moment, and sets my enquiry up for further research. I think this is a good academic treatise on Chinese philosophy, and I'm enjoying ploughing through it!Mike