Revisiting the foundation of Chinese spiritual life, the prestigious historian Cho?yun Hsu seeks a way to connect Chinese culture with the world.

This book is an insightful and lively discussion of the spiritual life of the Chinese people. Through investigation of cultural ideals and life practices, Professor Cho?yun Hsu constructs an original portrait of Chinese cultural values. Apart from the exalted subtleties of the scholarly elite, he pays much attention to everyday people's daily practices and collective memory, seeking to clarify Chinese ideas concerning the universe, human life, and nature, from traditional times down to the present day.

Professor Hsu contends the problems Western civilization is facing nowadays, including various crises of alienation and separation from nature, are ones that it lacks resources to solve. He believes Chinese humanistic culture might offer another way forward and be of benefit to the future of the world.