First published in 1974.

This volume illustrates the growth of two attitudes towards government in China during the first century B.C., the one progressive, realist and forward looking, the other conservative, idealist and harking back to the past. It demonstrates the close relationship that existed between political decisions, intellectual policy and the choice of religious observances of state, whilst showing how personal ambitions and the intrigues of the palace were intimately involved with the interplay of these two basis attitudes.