Shopping

This is a definite BUY. And to re-read. In fact, I am going to lug back a number of <百家讲坛> series of books, and most of them by Yi Zhongtian (易中天) when I head to China next month. His arrangement and style works particularly for people who have fragmented knowledge of the historical events during the Age of the Three Kingdoms and would like to have a clearer understanding of the motivations of the characters involved behind their decisions that shaped the political picture during those times. Picked up the book only lately, although I had heard much earlier about the book and Yi, who is now recognised as a historical/cultural authority (国学家) in China, after I was kinda impatient to sit through all the downloads of the TV series produced by the CPC, and reading the entire series is too time-consuming. I like that Yi followed the chronological order of events, while drawing on a number of respected historians' interpretation of the whats/hows/whys of events in the Three Kingdoms, although he appears partial towards a certain guy's reading of the psyche of major characters like Cao Cao, Liu Bei etc.

Another <百家讲坛> speaker to note is of course Yu Dan (于丹) but her books on Zhuangzi (庄子) and Lunyu (论语) are more "educational" in their thrusts, which is probably why she is so "welcomed" by the CPC, who finally saw the need to re-culturalise its people after stripping them of all moral values and thinking 40 years ago. Nonetheless, the series of historical/cultural tomes in <百家讲坛> has great merit in teaching us important lessons drawn from history and I always believe there is something useful in these lessons that can be applied to better and surpass ourselves.