In recent years, due to the advent of postcolonial studies, the study of religions has seen a number of publications that engage critically with the discourses we produce. What has been missing from this self-critical exploration, however, is a comprehensive analysis of the Western academic discourse on Confucianism. Anna Sun, in her book Confucianism as a World Religion: Contested Histories and Contemporary Realities, finally gives us what we have been awaiting: an in-depth and thoughtful reading of our debates over whether Confucianism can be categorized as a religion.

Sun begins the book by stating her object of enquiry: “What I am studying is not whether Confucianism is a religion but whether and how Confucianism has been constructed and contested as a religion by various social forces” (p. 8). Outlining what she sees to be the three confusions surrounding the religious nature of “Confucianism,” her introduction provides very helpful background information on the history of the debate. She finds that the discussion surrounding the religious nature of Confucianism emerges alongside the manufacturing of the “world religions” paradigm during the late-19th century in Europe. After outlining some of the historical shortcomings of studying Confucianism through a social scientific approach, she traces the discourse into the present and in China to show, albeit briefly, that understanding Confucianism's religious status today is not as clear-cut as one might hope.

Following this promising introductory section, the book is divided into three parts. Part one, consisting of three chapters, shows how the idea of Confucianism as a world religion came to be. In these chapters, Sun analyses what she sees to be the four controversies in the previous five centuries over the religious status of Confucianism. Chapter one summarizes these controversies, the first of which is the Jesuit's infamous “Chinese Rites and Term Controversy” (1579–1724). This will be known all too well by most historians of imperial China, but will be helpful to those lacking this Chinese historical background. The second controversy, what Sun calls “The Term Controversy” (1877–91), involved exchanges between missionaries, especially Protestants, and those working in the newly emerging discipline of comparative religion. The third controversy – known as “The Confucianity Movement” (Kongjiao yundong 1911–20) – consists of the failed attempt to make Confucianism a state religion after the 1911 Republican revolution. Sun ends the chapter by explaining the most recent controversy, “The Confucianism as a Religion Controversy” (rujiao shijiao zhizheng, 2000–04), which took place recently within China.

Chapter two goes into more detail on the second of the controversies. Sun shows how the comparative philologist Max Müller and former missionary and newly appointed Chair of Chinese at the University of Oxford, James Legge, used each other as leverage to promote their expertise, in the process configuring Confucianism as a world religion. Müller used Legge's linguistic abilities to include Chinese translations in his anthology of sacred texts, The Sacred Books of the East, making his collection more comprehensive. In turn, Legge, who had recently translated the Chinese term shangti as “God” to spark controversy within missionary circles, gained broader academic authority by associating with the scientific Müller. Working for Müller thus allowed Legge to move his ideas about Chinese religions (including the suggestion that Confucianism was a religion comparable to Christianity) from heated missionary conversations into Müller's newly emerging academic discipline of comparative religion. As a result of the interactions, according to Sun, both men claimed a new type of authority and the academic notion of Confucianism as a world religion was born. Ending this part of the book with the Chinese state's point of view, the third chapter explains the formation of the 1949 official state classification of the five major religions in China, which omits Confucianism.

While Sun's overall argument about Legge's immediate influence is convincing, I wonder if she falls into the trap of assigning too much credit to James Legge, at the expense of his Sinological predecessors. She endorses the Oxford English Dictionary, which claims that the word “Confucian” was first used in 1837 and “Confucianism” in 1862, although she writes that “the first significant usage of ‘Confucianism’ was in fact with James Legge…” in 1877 (pp. 38–39). Some pages later she uses a WorldCat search to make the bolder claim “that there was nothing published on Confucianism between 1800 and 1830” (p. 101). The methodology here is perhaps not the most sound because it results in some gaps. Robert Morrison reproduced Confucian texts in his Horae Sinicae (Black and Parry, 1812). Afterwards he took a sanjiao-styled approach to describe the Confucian sect as one of the three religions of China to the readers of his A View of China, for Philological Purposes (Black, Parbury and Allen, 1817). He later used the term “Confucian” in his Chinese Miscellany (LMS, 1825). William Milne also published about the sect of Confucius, as did Joshua Marshman, and both before 1820. John Mason Good's influential The Book of Nature, vol. 2 (Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1826) quotes an earlier letter from Robert Morrison, where the missionary uses the term “Confucianism” in describing contents of his Chinese library that he had deposited in England (p. 334, fn). One can subsequently locate the term “Confucianism” in the January 1833 issue of The Chinese Repository, referring to one of the religions of the Chinese, demonstrating that Morrison's descriptions of this tradition were shaping the British construction of China. One wonders, then, if Sun found these publications unimportant or, rather, if the focus on Legge's legacy led her to miss altogether the publications that influenced him – and others.

Part two examines the issues with studying Confucianism and identifying “Confucians” through empirical research methods. After examining with great clarity the difficulties in identifying followers of Confucianism through traditional social scientific research methods, Sun calls on the study of religions to reframe its research questions in order to gain a true appreciation for the various forms of religious experiences in China. This appeal for methodological reorientation is timely and attractive, and I believe that Sun really hits the target with this section. The questions she raises are important not only to scholars working on Chinese religions but also to practitioners of religious studies more broadly.

The final part, consisting of three chapters based upon Sun's extensive fieldwork in East Asia, brings the reader into the modern day to reassess the question: is Confucianism today a religion? Analysing a tightly woven web of political, cultural, sociological and historical factors, Sun demonstrates that, given the recent revival of certain Confucian rituals alongside the state's promotion of Confucianism as a source of social ethics, “the religious status of Confucianism in China has never been fuzzier” (p. 2). Her conclusion suggests the benefits of applying a category of civil religion to our understanding of religious experiences in China.

In all, this is a fantastic contribution to our understanding of Confucianism as a world religion. The book is as much about our ideas of Confucianism as it is about any Confucian religious reality. Sun's critical approach is most welcome and this is a must read for anyone interested in the study of Chinese religions or critical theory and the study of religions. It would make a particularly excellent addition to any introductory course on Chinese culture or a class that considers the ongoing debates about the definition of “religion.”