It has been almost four years since the publication of our translation of the first volume of Professor Ge Zhaoguang’s An Intellectual History of China in 2014. In this second volume, readers will find that the translators’ note is basically the same as that in the first volume, but here we have added information about the edition of the Chinese texts that served to prepare for this translation project. We have also offered some additional comments on the availability of the sources when the volume was first completed in 2000.

The work translated here was first published in two volumes as Zhongguo sixiangshi, di yi juan: Qi shiji qian Zhongguo de zhishi, sixiang yu xinyang shijie 中國思想史，第一卷，七世紀前的知識、思想與信仰世界 (1998) and Zhongguo sixiangshi, di er juan: Qi shiji zhi shijiu shiji Zhongguo de zhishi, sixiang yu xinyang 中國思想史，第二卷， 七世紀至十九世紀中國的知識、思想與信仰 (2000). The original text ran to just over 1,400 pages. This translation represents Professor Ge’s unpublished abbreviation of these two Chinese editions into just 666 pages of Chinese text. Volume Two of this two-volume translation covers pages 372 to 666 of this unpublished Chinese text.

This extensive work was a considerable success in China. As of 2014, it has been printed ten times with more than seventy thousand sets sold after its first publication, quite unusual for such a scholarly book. There may be many reasons for this success. One is that it was published in an environment where education and scholarship were allowed to resume their proper place in society after decades of social and political turmoil during Chairman Mao’s rule. A longing for knowledge and understanding of their own history has been widespread ever since the end of that rule. External causes can of course only explain part of the story. Without the great erudition and deep insights he employs in a reflective and open-minded manner, Professor Ge’s work may not have appealed to so many Chinese readers in a manner that some earlier works of a similar nature have failed to do.

There have previously been valuable Chinese works on Chinese intellectual history both written and translated by prestigious scholars in the field. Fung Youlan’s History of Chinese Philosophy was translated by Derk Bodde and published in 1952 and 1953 while part of Hsiao Kung-Chuan’s History of Chinese Political Thought was translated by F. W. Mote and published in 1979. These texts have been regarded by many scholars as required classics and they have well served Chinese studies in the West. Fung’s History, however, focuses on the exposition of Chinese thought as a branch of philosophical study, and Professor Mote’s passing in 2005 meant that only half of Hsiao Kung-Chuan’s original work could be made available to the English speaking world. A translation of Ge Zhaoguang’s most important recent study of Chinese intellectual history for the English speaking world would seem, then, to offer a rich supplement to the above texts as well as bringing in different perspectives and new understandings of a tradition that has more than two thousand years of history.

As Professor Ge’s own “introduction” (pp. xx-xx of volume one—An Intellectual History of China: Knowledge, Thought, and Belief through 1895 (Brill, 2014)—makes clear, his approach to Chinese intellectual history is very different from that of previous Chinese scholars in the field. Here, it is perhaps not out of place to state briefly that he discusses the importance of appropriating as wide a range of source materials as possible, especially those that only came to light recently and those that were neglected in the past. He also emphasizes the necessity of understanding ideas and thought in their proper historical contexts so that his Chinese readers can reduce their unavoidable preconceived modern assumptions and see the dialectical interaction between historical background and intellectual thought. Throughout, he stresses the complex dynamics involved in the interaction among the intellectual thought of elite Chinese scholars, their historical conditions, their canonical texts and what he calls the “worlds of general knowledge, thought and belief.” In the process, some key issues, including the formation of the Chinese world order, its underlying value system, the origins of the Chinese cultural identity and the impact of foreign thought, emerged to underscore his narrative. Such discussions can no doubt help readers understand why this work was so well received in contemporary China and hopefully also help stimulate dialogue about these issues in the field since they are clearly relevant to our time.

It is necessary to emphasize that Professor Ge’s work was written primarily for Chinese readers before the 21st century. As rich as the knowledge and insights included in his two volumes are, he was understandably unable to employ the information and discoveries offered by many new studies of traditional Chinese intellectual history in different time periods published after 2000 in Chinese, Japanese, English, and other major languages. This should not, however, hinder cross-cultural dialogue since these new studies of various specific time periods may not contradict, but agree with and supplement, the overall picture presented in Professor Ge’s two volumes.

As translators, we have been faced with the daunting task of trying to match our linguistic and intellectual abilities with Professor Ge’s enormous scholarly range and coverage of Chinese textual and archeological source materials. The many excellent available translations of Chinese works and the various online Chinese texts have been most helpful to us. We have also greatly benefited from discussions of our questions with Professor Ge in Vancouver. Without his quick and careful answers through email exchanges to our questions on each chapter, it would have been impossible to complete this work within a reasonable time.