1. Creel, Herrlee G., The Origins of Statecraft in China: The Western Chou Empire (Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 1970)Google Scholar.

2. See reviews by von Falkenhausen, Lothar (American Anthropologist 91.4 [12 1989], 1068–69)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Thorp, Robert (The Journal of Asian Studies 48.4 [11 1989], 829–30)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3. Chang, Kwang-chih, Shang Civilization (New Haven: Yale U. Press, 1980), 1–61Google Scholar.

4. That this convention is inspired primarily by Hsu's political philosophy seems clear from the last words of the book:

5. For Qian's argument, see “Zhou chu dili kao” 周初地理考, Yanjing xuebao 燕京 學報 10 (1931), 1955–2008Google Scholar; for my own views on this question, see Shaughnessy, Edward L., “Historical Geography and the Extent of the Earliest Chinese Kingdoms”, Asia Major (3rd. ser.) 2.2 (1989) 1–13Google Scholar.

6. I myself would agree with the sentence as it now appears, since I doubt that this vast territory was ever brought into the Zhou sphere of influence. In this regard, I would note one further apparent contradiction in Hsu and Linduffs discussion of Zhou relations with peripheral states: on p. 131, they refer to the discovery of the “Yihou Ze 宜侯矢 gui” in Dantu 丹徒, Jiangsu, and state that “it is tempting to surmise that this was the location of the vassal state of I”; on p. 156 and p. 233, they state without equivocation that the site of the discovery was the site of the “vassal state.” It is curious that in none of these discussions do they refer to Sheng-Zhang's, Huang 黃盛淳 study “Tongqi mingwen Yi, Yu, Ze de diwang ji qi yu Wu guo de guanxi” 銅器銘文宜虞矢的地望及其與吳國的關係 (Kaogu xuebao 1983.3, 295–305Google Scholar, an article listed in their bibliography), a study that I believe shows conclusively that at the time of the enfeoffment commemorated by this vessel Yi was in fact located along the Yi 宜 River just south of Luoyang, which is to say well within the Zhou capital region; for further elaboration of this geography, see Shaughnessy, , “Historical Geography and the Extent of the Earliest Chinese Kingdoms”, 13–22Google Scholar.

7. Among mistakes that might lead to factual misapprehensions (i.e., not including unambiguous typographical errors, romanization errors, or mistaken characters), on p. 108, the date of the last king of the state of Song 宋 should be 328/18–282 B.C., not “ca. 920–880 B.C.”; on p. 113, the sentence “the total number of destroyed and subjugated states was seven hundred and fifty, not many more than the figure of the eight hundred states allied with the Chou that is mentioned in the Shih-chi 史記” includes arithmetic that I do not understand; on p. 114, Shi Qiang lived at the time of King Gong and (perhaps) King Yih 截, not “King I 夷”; on p. 117, the sentence “members of the elite were repeatedly moved by decree from the capital for the sake of ‘strengthening the stem and weakening the branches’” surely should read “to the capital”; on p. 120, “Prince Lu 魯” “should read Prince Lu 条; on p. 121, the “Ch'in kuei 秦甚” should be the 禽基, and it should be noted that the inscription described here is actually that on the “Ran fangding”; on p. 133, reference should be to the “Xiao Yu 孟 ding” not the “Ta-Yü ting”; on p. 144, King Li's exile took place in 842 B.C., not “841”; on p. 147, “the tsung-fa structure of kingship” should surely read “kinship”; on p. 233, the discussion of the official position shi 史 or taishi 太史 seems to be confused with that of the shi 師; on p. 236, reference is made to the “Cai 蔡 gui” while the discussion seems to refer to the inscription of the “Yang 揚 gui” in which regard it should be noted that the official title si shi 司士 is doubtless due to a copyist's error (for situ 写土) in the text of this inscription, which survives only in a hand-copy; on p. 354, two separate poems, “Cai qi” 采 工 (Mao 178; Hsu and Linduff's citation here is erroneous) and “Chen gong” 臣工 (Mao 276), have been fused into one. Finally, as Lothar von Falkenhausen illustrates in his “Ancilla,” which follows this review, it is unfortunate that the numerous illustrations in the book are not provided with more informative and accurate captions.

8. Mention of Duke Huan also brings to mind the authors' failure to refer to the “Duo You 多友 ding” among inscriptions commemorating battles between the Zhou and Xianyun 獮狁 (p. 260).

9. For the date of this poem, which contains a much debated record of a solar eclipse, see Shanzhu, Fang (Sunjoo, Pang) 方善柱, “Xi-Zhou niandai xue shang de jige wenti” 西周年代學上的幾個問題, Dalu zazhi 大陸雜誌 51.1 (1975), 15–23Google Scholar, a study that seems to me finally to have resolved the issue.

10. For some discussion of Mencius's citation of this text, a text which has been lost from the Book of Documents (the extant “Wu cheng” chapter is a guwen 古文 forgery) but which I believe has been preserved as the “Shifu” 世俘 chapter of the Yi Zhou shu 逸周書, see Shaughnessy, Edward L., “‘New’ Evidence on the Zhou Conquest,” Early China 6 (1980–1981), 57–79, esp. 60–61Google Scholar.

11. Among topics that I believe would merit further discussion, I would note just in passing: the figure of 60,000–70,000 people cited several times for the population of the Zhou state that Hsu and Linduff take from Yanong, Li 李亞農 (Xinran Thai shi lunji 欣然齋史論集 [Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1962], 666–69)Google Scholar, though they admit that it is “simple but crude” (p. 70; see too p. 113); the thesis that by the fifth reign of the dynasty (Zhao or Mu ?) the Zhou system of feudalism was well developed (p. 112); the thesis (essentially taken from Shirakawa Shizuka 白川靜) that the Zhou conquerors enforced a massive westward migration of Shang people to Shaanxi (see pp. 116 ff.); the curious almost total lack of mention of the Duke of Zhou (mentioned only on p. 121 and p. 124), and the assertion that the “Yin Eight Armies” were comprised of Shang soldiers (p. 126). A more technical review would also find reason to discuss the dates Hsu and Linduff have assigned to some bronze vessels, including particularly the King Zhao dates for the “Hu zhong” (also known as the “Zongzhou 宗局 zhong; p. 135) and the “Ban 班 gui” (p. 138).

12. These figures are taken from Shaughnessy, Edward L., Sources of Western Zhou History: Inscribed Bronze Vessels (Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1991), Table 11Google Scholar.