A young friend of mine was asking for recommendations on an introduction to Chinese philosophy. Xunzi: The Complete Text would be hard going for him I suspect, as he has minimal background. My inclination is to suggest A Short History of Chinese Philosophy. My personal experience (yes, I’m still slogging through the medieval section of A New History of Western Philosophy) is that a narrative historical framework makes the abstruse nature of philosophical reflection go down a bit easier.

If you want to get primary sources (translated obviously), Sources of Chinese Tradition would be a good bet, but it’s probably too much without having any reference points. Any thoughts from readers? T. Greer can probably help here….