The Zhouyi, Bronze Age progenitor to the Yijing (I Ching), or Book of Changes, was a divination manual created and utilized by the early rulers of the Zhou dynasty (founded 1046 BCE). This new translation dispenses with 20th century attempts to discredit tradition and endeavors to recover the context of its early Zhou dynasty origins. As such, interpretation of its language is based strictly upon pre-Confucian sources to avoid the anachronistic readings that accrued to the text in its evolution from a book of divination to a book of philosophy. For the first time in the book's translation history, its judgment and line texts have been clearly labeled according to their content - either omen, counsel, or prognostication - in order to clarify their divinatory function. Furthermore, each hexagram is accompanied by a line-by-line commentary providing detailed background for the situations presented in the texts and explicating metaphorical language and technical syntax. The general public will appreciate the narrative cohesion of the commentaries, while the specialist will welcome the appended Chinese text. Finally, the book also provides the reader with explanations of the myth, legend, and history in the formative stages of the Zhouyi's creation and gives comprehensive information on how to cast the oracle and interpret the resulting reading.

Modern research has revealed the Book of Changes to be a royal divination manual of the Zhou state (500100 BC). This new translation synthesizes the results of modern study, presenting the work in its historical context. The first book to render original Chinese rhymes into rhymed English.

A translation of a key commentary on perhaps the most broadly influential text of classical China This book is a translation of a key commentary on the Book of Changes, or Yijing (I Ching), perhaps the most broadly influential text of classical China. The Yijing first appeared as a divination text in Zhou-dynasty China (ca. 1045-256 bce) and later became a work of cosmology, philosophy, and political theory as commentators supplied it with new meanings. While many English translations of the Yijing itself exist, none are paired with a historical commentary as thorough and methodical as that written by the Confucian scholar Cheng Yi, who turned the original text into a coherent work of political theory.

Approximately 1045 BCE the ruler of an independent province on the frontier of ancient China named Ji Fa defeated the reigning Emperor Di Xin's vast forces to found China's 3rd dynasty, the Zhou. The rise of the Zhou with their military, scientific, cultural, and economic superiority and their triumph over the Shang dynasty is the subject of this novel.For the most part, Ji Fa's conquest was made possible by three extraordinary men: (1) Ji Chang- Ji Fa's father, primary author of the world's oldest book, founder of the world's first public school system and citizen's college, the Thomas Jefferson of his age; (2) Ji Dan (Zhougong)- Ji Fa's younger brother, a political and administrative genius, significant contributor to the oldest book, the Ben Franklin of his age; (3) Lu Shang (Taigong)- an immigrant to Zhou, China's greatest military leader, the Robert E. Lee of his age. These three men are still today considered among China's most revered heroes, as they were by the great sage himself, Confucius, five centuries later. Indeed, much of what has become Chinese culture as now known originated, not with Confucius, but with Ji Chang and Ji Dan, whom Confucius admired greatly.The I Ching (The Book of Changes) was written by Ji Chang during a seven year captivity by the last Shang emperor, an atrocity that contributed crucially to the downfall of the Shang. After the Zhou conquest, Ji Dan added significantly to the book even during a post-conquest period of terrific instability and authored several other ancient volumes that have had vast influence on Chinese society and thought. Except for an appendix added by Confucius and other miscellaneous latter day scribbling, The Book of Changes has come to us through the ages just as the two leaders wrote it.The story of their conquest concerns itself with conflicts of values: morality versus practicality, independence versus social propriety, self-restraint versus the exercise of power, and so on. This period is prior to Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, even Judaism (perhaps even Hinduism). Viewing the world from 3,000 years ago as China emerged from the stone age, some of our most respected modern attitudes become suspect. Through their eyes nature and primitivism were a lifelong threat, virtue and social propriety were a practical necessity, and ritual and sacrifice was vital to cultural progress. Indeed, as modern China increasingly considers itself in "exceptionalist" terms, the Zhou concept of "tianxia" (all under heaven) is being proffered by Chinese thinkers as an alternative to the current, prevailing "nation state" model of civilization [Banyan: "Nothing New Under Heaven." The Economist, Vol. 399, No. 8738 (6-18-2011), p.50].The drama of the story arises from the contrast between Ji Chang, one of China's finest men, and the corrupt and decadent Shang Emperor, Di Xin, one of China's worst (whose depravity, incidentally, pales in comparison to well known latter day despots). This contrast is extended to the men around the two leaders and ultimately to their cultures as a whole as the characters are swept into the maelstrom of civil war.

The Zhou Changes, better known in the West as I Ching, is one of the masterpieces of world literature. This book, the climax of more than forty years of research in Chinese archaeology, explores the text’s origins in the oracle-bone and milfoil divinations of Bronze Age China and how it transformed over the course of the Zhou dynasty into the first of the Chinese classics. The book provides an in-depth survey of the theory and practice of divination to demonstrate how the hexagram and line statements of the text were produced and how they were understood at the time.

Examines the original composition of China's oldest books, the Classic of Changes, the Venerated Documents, and the Classic of Poetry, and attempts to restore their original meanings.

Modern research has revealed the Book of Changes to be a royal divination manual of the Zhou state (500100 BC). This new translation synthesizes the results of modern study, presenting the work in its historical context. The first book to render original Chinese rhymes into rhymed English.