In his last essay just weeks before his death at the age of 91, David S. Nivison says, "Breaking into a formal system - such as a chronology - must be like breaking into a code. If you are successful, success will show right off." Since the late 1970's Nivison has focused his scholarship on breaking the code of Three Dynasties (Xia, Shang, Zhou) chronology by establishing an innovative methodology based on mourning periods, astronomical phenomenon, and numerical manipulations derived from them. Nivison is most readily known in the field for revising (and then revising again) the date of the Zhou conquest of Shang, and for his theory that Western Zhou kings employed two calendars (His so-called "Two yuan" theory), the second being set in effect upon the death of the new king's predecessor and counted from the completion of post-mourning rites for him (i.e., a "second 'first' year"). Nivison's enabling discovery that the Bamboo Annals (BA) had a historical basis was initially designed to make Wang Guowei's analysis of lunar phase terms (the so-called "Four quarter" theory that separated each month into four quarters) work for Western Zhou bronze inscriptions. In order to do so he had to assume that some inscriptions used a second yuan counted from completion of mourning. The king's death was the most important event late in a reign, so this implied that a king's reign-of-record was normally counted from the second yuan, omitting initial mourning years. It follows that when the unexpressed mourning years are forgotten (or edited out) but the dates of the beginning and end of the dynasty are still known, the remaining reigns-of-record cluster toward the beginning and end, and a reign in the middle is enlarged. Problems, ideas, and solutions like the one described above are found throughout this new collection of important works on chronology, astronomy, and historiography.

This book is the result of discoveries made by Nivison beginning in 1979. It uses critically (without superseding) his monographs from 1983 through 2002, combined with his discoveries through 2009. Its main thrust is to show that the methods and results of the PRC "Three Dynasties Project" are invalid, and that recovering chronology before 841 BCE can be solved only by using the supposedly spurious Jinben Zhushu Jinian ("Modern Text" Bamboo Annals), combined with the hypothesis that reign lengths of record were normally the years after completion of mourning for the preceding king. Part One presents resulting exact dates from the beginning of Xia, confirmed by discoveries in astronomy by D. W. Pankenier and Kevin Pang. Part Two criticizes the Three Dynasties Project and argues for the post-mourning hypothesis and the high antiquity of the three-years mourning institution. In Part Three, applying a discovery by E. L. Shaughnessy, the author reconstructs the first 303 bamboo strips of the original Bamboo Annals text (perhaps five-sevenths of the whole). In so doing he shows that the entire chronology in the Zhushu jinian is the product of Warring States manipulation of the true chronology; therefore any attempt to recover accurate dates must begin by analyzing the "Modern Text" Zhushu jinian - which the Project ignored completely. Appendices present more data and analysis, notably (Appendix 4) pinpointing the source of the Project's errors in dating late Shang events.

Is human nature good or evil? Does knowledge guarantee right action, or can humans do what is wrong when they know what is right? What parts should teachers, classic texts, and our own moral intuitions play in our ethical cultivation?

Confucianism is one of the world's most influential philosophical traditions, offering profound and challenging insights on human nature, virtue, and the foundations of civilization. In The Ways of Confucianism, David S. Nivison brings out the exciting variety within Confucian thought, as he interprets and elucidates key thinkers from over two thousand years, from Confucius himself, through Mencius and Xunzi, to Wang Yangming, Dai Zhen, and Zhang Xuecheng.