Richey has written an engaging and well-crafted book that clearly delineates the oftentimes fitful development of Confucianism in China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. At the same time, he masterfully demonstrates how Confucianism slowly came to dominate politics, thought, and society in each of these places and still continues to inform their assumptions, values, and institutions. Richey also expertly underscores the outsized role that government has played in promoting and sustaining this tradition’s formidable influence. This second, revised and expanded edition incorporates analysis of Confucianism’s impact on how East Asian societies have responded to recent events such as the global coronavirus epidemic, the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, and recent legal developments and social media trends.

Jeffrey L. Richey is Professor of Asian Studies at Berea College. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, he completed graduate studies in East Asian religious history at Harvard University and the University of California at Berkeley before earning his Ph.D. in Cultural and Historical Studies of Religions with a concentration in East Asian religions at the Graduate Theological Union. He has edited and contributed to several books on Confucian and other East Asian traditions, including Teaching Confucianism (New York: Oxford University Press), The Sage Returns: Confucian Revival in Contemporary China (Albany: SUNY Press), and Daoism in Japan: Chinese Traditions and Their Influence on Japanese Religious Culture (London: Routledge).