This volume tells the story of the importance of the Confucian traditions and why and how Confucian texts were reinterpreted within the different ambiances and contexts around East Asia. The vitality of East Asian Confucianisms stems from the desire of Confucian thinkers to interpret the core values of the Confucian classics in line with conditions and changes in their own times and location. Although all the interpretations that were advanced in China, Korea and Japan were specific to their own era, they do still share some themes in common. This book reveals that “East Asian Confucianisms” forms an intellectual community that is transnational and multi-lingual and has evolved in interaction between Confucian “universal values” and the local conditions present in each East Asian country.
