Abstract

Munro sets out to describe the “enduring assumptions” about human nature and the “proper function of government” common to Confucian China and “Chinese Marxist thought” (p. vii). He chooses a form of exposition that he judges specially suited for “an audience reared in a liberal democracy” rather than in “a monarchy or another socialist state.” There is no doubt of the success of the limited aim. But the form, perhaps coupled with Munro's own liberal-democratic assumptioas, prevents the book from illuminating the contemporary scene in the way it might otherwise have done.

The central “enduring assumption” that Munro treats he calls “clustering.” This, he explains, “involves combinations of three mental phenomena: knowing, feeling, and promptings to act.