Les signes et les mutations: Une approche nouvelle du Yi King histoire, pratique et texte (review)

26o China Review International: Vol. 5, No. 1, Spring 1998 police, who were themselves behind much of the terror and vice. According to Wakeman, "Collaboration with the Japanese police was rapidly reaching the point of abject capitulation to the Japanese military" (p. 79). Having said this, however, Wakeman unfortunately does not elaborate further on the implications this had for the increasingly strained relations between Japan and the West. Although the book also purports to examine "urban crime" in Shanghai, nevertheless its major thrust, and therefore its major contribution, is what it has to say about political terrorism. In his discussion of crime, Wakeman deals only with organized crime as it related to terrorism, and says little about common crimes like theft, robbery, and non-terrorist homicides, which also plagued the city. Surprisingly, too, there is little mention ofthe involvement ofChinese communists in terrorism and crime in Shanghai. These caveats notwithstanding, this is an important book. It is the first major study of resistance, collaboration, and terrorism in wartime China. What is more, it adds significandy to the growing body of scholarly literature on the history of Shanghai that has appeared in recent years. Robert J. Antony Western Kentucky University RobertJ. Antony is an associateprofessor ofhistory specializing in modern Chinese legal and social history. Wang Dongliang. Les signes et les mutations: Une approche nouvelle du Yi King histoire, pratique et texte. Paris: L'Asiathèque, 1995. 336 pp. Paperback FF 188, isbn 2-901795-99-4. This book, packaged as a compact paperback, is chock-full ofinformation on the history and use of the Yijing (or, in the traditional French spelling, Yi King). It also includes the Chinese texts of the received and Mawangdui versions ofthe hexagram judgments and lines, a modern Chinese version of the traditional text, and a new French translation. Wang Dongliang, a Ph.D. and lecturer in Paris, writes succinctly and well about matters that have wasted many a brush and pen© 1998 by University Qyer {he pagt ^6 mmennia Although the book's subtitle speaks ofa "newapawai ? ressproach," the author's strong suit is his ability, in the words ofthe Yijing's eleventh hexagram, to "divide and complete," to "further and regulate," the contributions of earlier Yijingscholars. Reviews 261 The first of the book's two parts covers the ancient classic's histoire and pratique . In the introduction, Wang calls attention to the importance of studying the signs, or hexagram drawings, in any attempt to understand the text. I quote his words here not only to show his orientation but also to give an idea ofhis easy prose style. Il s'agit donc d'un système de signes parfaitement fait pour montrer la transformation continue, censé être libre de toutes les contraintes linguistiques et contenant déjà tous les textes possibles, les paroles et les écrits venant après n'étant que l'explication perpétuelle du sens des signes. (It is a question, therefore , ofa system ofsigns perfectly made to show continuous transformation, supposed to be free ofall linguistic constraints and already containing all possible texts, the words and writings that come afterward being only the perpetual explication of the signs' meaning.) (p. 12) Wang touches here on the centuries-old division in Yijingstudies between scholars interested primarily in the "numbers" and hexagram pictures and those more interested in studying the words of the text. Just as the Yijingis neither pure Taoism nor pure Confucianism but the fount ofboth, it is also an inseparable combination ofsigns and text, ofdivination and wisdom. The text, in fact, may refuse to reveal its meaning to scholars who cannot bring themselves to consult its signs; with the Yijing, the highest wisdom is to divine. In the first three chapters, Wang reviews much that is known about the divination system first called Zhouyi (Zhou changes), then Yijing (Changes classic) when it became one of the Confucian masterworks. He is to be commended for carefully distinguishing mythical, traditional, and archeological knowledge; he devotes a chapter to each. Chapter 4 examines ancient methods ofconsulting the oracle. Wang first explains how to construct a hexagram by yarrow-stalk divination according to instructions given in the classic's Ten Wings. Then he gives...