Available From UC Press

This monograph presents insights of general historical and intellectual interest derived from the Shang oracle bone inscriptions from Anyang. The insights are integrated with data from other fields, including metereology, botany, zoology, astronomy, sociology, and archaeology. By presenting a relatively large number of inscriptions, Keightley hopes to give readers an almost tactile sense, not only of what it was like to be a Late Shang king and a Late Shang diviner, but also of what it is to be a scholar who works with these materials. And by translating, in context, more than a hundred and fifty of the inscriptions, he also hopes to introduce readers to the ways in which the earliest written documents yet found in China may be studied.

David Keightley was professor emeritus of history at the University of California, Berkeley. His research has focused on early Chinese civilization and oracle bone script. His publications include Sources of Shang History: The Oracle-Bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China, The Ancestral Landscape: Time, Space, and Community in Late Shang China (ca. 1200-1045 B.C.), and Working for His Majesty. Education: B.A., Columbia University; Ph.D., Columbia University

"This is a work of extraordinary maturity—a well-considered, incisive, careful, yet bold and highly original summation of insights gained over many decades of research….Keightley here presents in compelling and…understandable form some insights of general historical and intellectual interest that are derived from this rare body of original materials, and he integrates them with a dazzling array of data from other fields of scholarship—including metereology, botany, zoology, astronomy, sociology, and archaeology. The resulting lively and multifaceted picture of Shang realities is extremely impressive [...] The brilliant synthesis of the Shang social configuration of the cosmos that is presented here is unprecedented in its scope and startling in its clarity. It greatly exceeds all previous piecemeal work on the issue by Chinese, Japanese, and Western experts. Specialists as well as general readers will...feel deeply moved and inspired by this work...This is historical writings at its best"—Lothar von Falkenhausen

"Those who have a professional interest in Early China studies will find this book not only informative in its own right but also a good portal through which to enter more deeply into the material....But this is also a fine (and all too unusual) example of a scholarly book that is worth reading for pure pleasure, quite apart from its value as a source of particular information and analysis. Keightley's lucid prose and magisterial interpretive stance, together with the richness of the subject itself, make this book a rare treat. Even the footnotes are interesting. The Ancestral Landscape deserves to find a readership far beyond the confines of its scholarly field."—John S. Major, China Review International 9, no. 2 (Fall 2002): 460-464

“David Keightley is one of a handful of American scholars who have worked methodically to introduce the complexities of [oracle bone] scholarship to Western readers. Unlike many other scholars, his approach is to let the bones speak for themselves, and he only rarely introduces evidence from the later transmitted textual tradition. […] The Ancestral Landscape is an excellent tool for students to learn how historians can decipher the often-cryptic bone inscriptions for vital social, historical, and cultural information. —Constance A. Cook, Lehigh University, Journal of Chinese Religions 29, no. 1 (2001): 311–313