The I Ching: A Biography by Richard J. Smith Princeton University Press
Like some of our foundational cultural texts, the I Ching is a product of collective effort. Its long life over the past 3,000 years has generated an inordinate amount of exegetical and critical scholarship, and our experience of the book is characterised by two difficulties: its cryptic formulations, and the massive amount of secondary literature that contributes to the growing repertoire of the classic Chinese text.
Richard Smith's slim volume explains, with admirable clarity, how the hexagrams work and how such basic concepts as yin, yang, and qi have defined Taoist thinking and, more generally, Chinese culture.
The I Ching is a book of divination, a metaphysical exposition of the original life forces, and everyday wisdom.
The chapter on the influential readings of the I Ching is a good example of Smith's critical and textual scholarship. Taking into account a diversity of factors, including 'philosophical and religious affiliations, intellectual fashions, class status, gender, personal taste, family ties, and other variables of time, space, and circumstance' it's a breathtaking overview of the history of the I Ching, which is balanced with the accounts of its specific uses, such as the Kangxi emperor's efforts to read and master the book for statecraft.
Distilling a large amount of information, the author offers a charming biography of the I Ching - its growth, its dissemination, and its transformation. 'Biography' is an interesting organic metaphor describing the making and growth of this cultural canon.