Books by Michael J. Puett

This book studies the debates that raged in China from the Warring States period to the early Han concerning how and under what circumstances new institutions could be formed and legitimated.

By treating the issues of cosmology, sacrifice, and self-divinization in a historical and comparative framework that attends to the contemporary significance of specific arguments, Puett shows that the basic cosmological assumptions of ancient China were the subject of far more debate than is generally thought.