Review: Christianity and Confucianism in Later Ming Dynasty by Sun Shangyang

This paper is a book review of Sun Shangyang's Christianity and Confucianism in Later Ming Dynasty-Exchange & Conflicts. The author analyzed the role of Christian missionaries-Catholics like Mat: teo Ricci (Italian, d. 1610 in Peking) of the Jesus Society who introduced Western learning into China, and the intelligentsia they encountered, especially the three pillars of the Chinese Catholic Church-Xu Guangqi, Yang Tingjun, and Li Zhizhao-and their responses. The book was first published in 1992 in Taiwan, and later edited and published in 1994 by the Dongfang Publishing House (Beijing) under the title Christianity and Confucianism in Later Ming Dynasty. Why should we review a book published over ten years ago? The review attests to the value of this study, the work of the Japanese author, Sun, and points to new developments in Christian studies among scholars from the China Mainland and from Taiwan. The reviewer also comments on the 1994 Mainland edition's effort to improve on the content and structure of the original work.