Gan, Chunsong 幹春松, The Institutionalization and Falling of Confucianism 制度儒學及其解體, Revised Edition, Beijing: People’s University of China Press, 2011, 408 pages

Abstract

The rise of Confucianism in China for the past two decades has led me to expect a book that would analyze the penetrating impact of Confucianism in formulating the traditional Chinese social structure and political system. Gan’s book in its first edition (2003) caught my eye several years ago. This revised work demonstrates Gan’s familiarity with the related documents and offers insight into the subject, and I believe that it will definitely provoke further discussion on the subject and help us understand more about the future impact of Confucianism on Chinese society. The book is divided into two sections. The first deals with the ways Confucianism enters Chinese social structures and how those structures become Confucianized. In the second section, the author collects several essays detailing the contemporary history of China, in which Confucianism failed to defend itself against Western challenges and was therefore separated from the Chinese political system. The second section occupies two thirds of the book, indicating that the author is deeply concerned with the fall of Confucianism in the contemporary world. However, as the author admits, the book has yet to explore, from the point of view of institutionalization, the possibilities and paths in which Confucianism may make positive contributions to Chinese social structure and order in the contemporary world (3). Gan conceives the institutionalization of Confucianism in two ways: “One is that, as a school of thought with a set of ideas, Confucianism became institutionalized; and the other is that the Confucian ideas of politics and ethics have gradually penetrated into the current political system and social structure, and made them become Confucianized” (16). It is not necessary to discern which follows which chronologically. Rather, they occur simultaneously. The book’s first chapter deals with Confucianization of the Chinese political system and social structure; the second chapter with the institutionalization of Confucianism. Let me follow Gan’s discussion further. Confucius himself studied history from the time of Emperors Yao and Shun and adopted the constitution established by Emperors Dao (2013) 12:403–406 DOI 10.1007/s11712-013-9337-y