Scholarship about early medieval China has grown exponentially in recent decades. Until now, however, there was no collection of primary sources to represent the breadth of the third through sixth centuries’ transformative developments. This large anthology containing thirty-eight chapters of annotated translations superbly fills the need. The contributors include some of the best-known authorities on early medieval society and culture. Many texts appear for the first time in Western-language translation.

The volume's essays ensure accessibility to nonspecialists. Wendy Swartz's introduction (pp. 1–10) synopsizes conditions under North China's foreign governments and native dynasties south of the Yangzi, and explains the volume's arrangement around themes that capture the “complexities of the early medieval period” and the “cross-fertilization of various fields.” The co-editors’ prefaces to the sections elaborate on themes in more depth. Especially useful for researchers are the contributors’ essays that contextualize the translated work (oftentimes, groups of works) by discussing the circumstances that gave rise to it, its key elements, its precedents or comparable writings of the period, its impact on later ages (such as for administrative policy or as a literary model), and so forth. Each concludes with suggestions for further reading.

Emphasizing the themes’ interrelatedness, Swartz notes among several examples that Shen Yue's “Impeaching Wang Yuan” by David R. Knechtges (chap. 10 in part 2, “Governing Mechanisms and Social Reality”) could belong to part 5, “Everyday Life,” for its relevance to the southern elite's economic interests and self-definition of social class. Connections across themes indeed seem unlimited. For the perdurance of orthodox thought during early medieval times, about which relatively little has been published, readers may turn to J. Michael Farmer's entry about classical scholarship in Shu (chap. 6) and that of Keith N. Knapp on Confucian views of the supernatural (chap. 37). Chapters concerning factors of success in office include Ping Wang's entry about the Liang dynasty's “number-one poet” Liu Xiaochuo (chap. 14) and Paul W. Kroll's about Jiang Yan, who fell into disfavor despite his erudition and talent (chap. 24). Some contributing authors are responsible for multiple chapters. Mentioned below are those not heretofore named and their selective entries.

Part 1, “The North and the South,” which investigates images of the North and South that arose during this longest epoch of political division, opens by discussing the memorials that settled the Eastern Jin debate over attempting to return to the cultural heartland (Jessey J. C. Choo). Although most surviving characterizations are from a southern perspective, differences of event and terminology in the Wei shu and Song shu versions of a diplomatic disputation reveal each side's underscoring its claim to political legitimacy (Albert E. Dien).

Part 2, “Governing Mechanisms and Social Reality,” addresses the social order of diverse places and periods, and the state's measures to bring the so-called aristocracy and local elites under its authority. Documents include bamboo slips from Changsha that recorded judicial settlements of taxation and land ownership cases (Yang Lu); third-century proposals to reform the recommendation system's procedures (Timothy M. Davis); petitions regarding the southern elite's incorporating wild areas into their estates (Charles Holcombe); the defense of a Northern Wei royal in-law whose legal argumentation relied on classical family ethics (Jen-der Lee); and stele inscriptions from Turfan that reflected interactions between Buddhism and local political authority (Huaiyu Chen).

The focus upon cultural accomplishment in part 3, “Cultural Capital,” begins with Robert Ashmore's chapter correlating Xi Kang's “Sound Is Without Sadness or Joy” with the dialogical art of “pure conversation.” Among discussions of poetic practice is Xiaofei Tian's chapter about a group of commemorative verses in the Palace Style. Materials rationalizing literary tradition include Pei Ziye's “Discourse on Insect Carving” (Jack W. Chen); Zhi Yu's analysis of various genres’ functions and traits (Wendy Swartz); Zhong Rong's preface to Grades of Poets (Stephen Owen); and sixth-century essays about book collecting and cataloging. While not aiming to probe relations of power, part 3 sensitively addresses social dimensions of cultural performance.

Part 4, “Imaging Self and Other,” treats portrayals of character, the purpose of which outgrew evaluating suitability for office. Besides examples in Recent Anecdotes from the Talk of the Ages and self-narratives that likewise constructed identity through reference to typological traits, Alan Berkowitz's selections from Huangfu Mi's Accounts of High-Minded Men show that despite the redaction of materials to suit a generic category—here, of men who declined to serve government—singularity emerges in expressed motives, abilities, and lifestyles. Discussing eulogies on “shadow images” of the Buddha created for caves, Eugene Wang interweaves points of religious belief and contemplative experience with an art-historical consideration of the illusionistic medium.

The introduction (pp. 429–46) to part 5, “Everyday Life,” concisely yet substantively informs readers about early medieval social classes and mobility, marriage regulations, the layout of cities, food, clothing, festivals, and rituals. Ian Chapman's chapter on Record of the Year and Seasons of Jing-chu discusses the meeting of high culture and low in seasonal customs, and the emergence of many new festive celebrations. Aspects of everyday life are elsewhere represented through Yan Zhitui's instructions to his sons on managing the family patrimony; Shi Chong's poetic writings indicating disparate uses of his latifundia; an epitaph recording a wet nurse's social advancement; an adoptive mother's controversial petition; and a rhapsody about pasta's varieties and preparation.

Part 6, “Relations with the Unseen World,” examines interactions between the human and supernatural worlds. Translating mainly from Hui Jiao's Biographies of Eminent Monks, James A. Benn discusses autocremators and beliefs surrounding this ultimate demonstration of selflessness. Selections from Declarations of the Perfected, the communications from celestial immortals to a fifth-century medium, exemplify the “minor arts of transcendence” in prescriptions for revitalizing failing eyesight and hearing (Stephen R. Bokenkamp). Another excerpt from the Declarations, paired with Ge Hong's “Investigating Sacred Regions,” together illustrate competing traditions of seeking knowledge through subterranean journeys into “cavern heavens” (Gil Raz). Anomaly accounts from Records of the Hidden and Visible Worlds reflect the conviction that spirits truly exist and that discernible moral principles govern their dealings with humans (Robert F. Campany). Other chapters discuss a Lingbao Daoist scripture whose subject is the scripture's own sacredness, and its proper transmission and recitation (Clarke Hudson), and also texts buried in tombs, such as land-purchase contracts, that ensured the deceased's tranquility but served also to limit its contact with living descendants.