This slim volume provides a great deal of value and interest. Pauline Lee has written a marvelous study of the late Ming iconoclastic thinker Li Zhi (1527–1602) and his place in the complex and dynamic intellectual culture of sixteenth-century China. Her focus is on Li's thought and writing, using close readings of three short texts to develop a deep and subtle analysis of Li's life and work. This is not a conventional biography, or even an account of the development of Li's thought over time. Rather, Lee uses her chosen texts to present a view of Li's ideas and their relationship to other currents in late Ming Confucian discourse. This allows her to highlight his devotion to certain key values and concepts, ultimately centering on what Lee describes as an “ethics of genuine feelings” (p. 7).

The book is organized in five chapters, followed by three appendices that present full translations of the texts Lee uses as the base of her study. These are “A Sketch of Zhuowu: Written in Yunnan” (Zhuowu lunlüe: Dianzhong zuo), “On the Child-Like Heart-Mind” (Tongxin shuo), and “Miscellaneous Matters” (Zashuo). The first chapter reflects on existing scholarship about Li in China and the West, and sets out the issues that the remainder of the book engages. The three core chapters are devoted, in succession, to the texts named above. The “Sketch of Zhuowu” provides a basic biographical overview of Li's life, as well as showing how Li's autobiographical self-image was crafted to express his philosophical views, especially the need to express and live out genuine emotions and feelings. The “Child-Like Heart-Mind” argues that the basis for those feelings lies in the spontaneous expression of individual human desires, arising in a simple, originally innocent consciousness which each person must seek to protect and maintain in their own course of self-cultivation. The “Miscellaneous Matters” explores the problem of how one can know if particular feelings and desires are in fact genuine and good, or merely selfish and shortsighted. This proves to be a matter of a set of characteristics that provide a kind of “family resemblance” (p. 69) that allows one to see the true value expressed in a given situation. The final chapter is an argument for the philosophical relevance of Li Zhi to later Chinese thought and to life in the modern world, East or West. Lee argues passionately at several points in the book that Li's thought must be studied and understood not merely as an artifact of Ming intellectual history, but as a living body of philosophy that has meaning and value for humans beyond the context of its original production.

Lee's discussion of Li Zhi is a delight to read. She is convincing in her advocacy of Li's significance in the sphere of Ming thought, and makes a compelling case for his continuing relevance. The writing is lively, and the translations are clear and illuminating. This is a fine study of an important subject.

Nonetheless, while admiring Lee's commitment to the ongoing importance of Li's ideas, the reader may detect a certain shallowness in her efforts to contextualize Li in the swirling intellectual, social, and economic life of sixteenth-century China. She discusses the Taizhou School and the thought of Wang Yangming as important aspects of the intellectual world that shaped Li Zhi, and relates his ideas and activities to other key intellectual figures, from Luo Rufang to Tang Xianzu and many others. But the underlying ground of economic development, the centrality of market exchange and commodity production, and the widespread social angst that permeated Ming society through this turbulent century forms only a vague backdrop, rather than constituting a powerful shaping force in the development of late Ming intellectual culture. Li Zhi and other Ming thinkers are presented as individuals struggling with important questions, but they seem to float in a kind of amorphous discursive space, without being rooted in the lived experience of a rapidly changing world.

These concerns in no way reduce the importance and value of Lee's study. Her close readings of Li's essays are exemplary of the best work in intellectual and literary historical studies, and I found that her prose style made reading this book a very pleasant way to pass a weekend. The field of Chinese history needs more studies of important figures such as Li Zhi, and this book is a major contribution to a growing body of biographical and semi-biographical works.