Bodde Derk. China's first unifier: A study of the Chʻin dynasty as seen in the life of Li Ssŭ, 280?-208 B.C

Hong Kong University Press, 1967. — 283 p. — (Sinica Leidensia 3).First edition, E.J. Brill, Leiden 1938; Re-issue, Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong March 1967.
This book, originally published in 1938 by E. J. Brill, Leiden, has long been out of print. Today, for example, I think I would be less ready than thirty years ago to accept the literal reality of some of the more lurid stories in the Shih chi concerning the Ch’in First Emperor (Chap. V, Sect. 1). I would, I hope, be less confident that Chinese thinking could be reliably defined by adumbrating a few sweeping generalizations (Chap. XII). And I am reasonably certain that I would be less inclined to accept—at least at face value—the traditional interpretation of the Confucian-Legalist controversy as one of absolute good against absolute evil, ‘freedom’ against totalitarianism, humanism against barbarism, and the like. While nowhere does the book actually formulate these or similar dichotomies with anything like such finality, some readers may suspect that thinking of this sort underlies certain remarks to be found on pp. 175, 191-192, 196, 199, 210, and possibly elsewhere.