A Biographical Dictionary of the Qin, Former Han and Xin Periods (221 Bc - Ad 24)

A scholar of Chinese with credentials at Cambridge, Harvard, and Chicago, Loewe unveils a massive and comprehensive reference on China's formative first empires. He profiles, sometimes in several pages, about 6,000 men and women. They include writers, scholars, historians, philosophers, and others who set the literary forms and intellectual background; officials who administered the empire; military leaders in civil and foreign wars; and of course the emperors themselves. He draws on primary sources, eastern and western commentary on them, and archaeological evidence. Though Brill books are all well made, this volume stands out as particularly lovely. It has genuine cloth binding (rather than pasteboard stamped to look clothish), is Smythe sewn, and is crisply printed with many expensive Chinese characters on fine paper: truly a permanent resource. Would that even an occasional domestic book show such pride of artifice. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Michael Loewe, Ph.D. (1963) in Chinese Studies, London, was a Lecturer in Chinese Studies, Cambridge from 1963 to 1990, and a Visiting Professor at Harvard and Chicago. He has published widely on the dynastic, religious and institutional history of China's early empires.