Leather-bound gift book "The Book of Power"

"Shang Yang: The Book of Power or the Book of the Ruler of the Shang region" is a gift edition of a leather-bound book. Shang Yang is an outstanding Chinese thinker and politician, one of the founders of legalism, a philosophical and political doctrine opposed to the teachings of Taoism and Confucianism.

Every ruler who wants to return strength, power and glory to his country inevitably discovers the "Book of Power" — one of the world's first treatises on the management and preservation of power, no less revered in China than the works of Confucius. This work was discovered in Europe only two millennia after it was written. Shang Yang's ideas had a huge impact not only on his contemporaries, but also on many subsequent generations. Thanks to their introduction into life, the Qin kings in less than a hundred years managed to turn their state into the strongest of the Seven Struggling Kingdoms (Zhanguo era), which made it possible for Qin Shi Huang to unite China under the rule of Qin. However, even in ancient times, the assessment of Shang Yang's ideas was not unambiguous.

The centuries-old struggle against the teachings of Shang Yang led only to a formal victory, since during this struggle all other philosophical and political teachings of China (and above all Confucianism) lost their original features, absorbing many provisions of legalism, including those that caused the greatest rejection.

The teachings of the Legalist lawyers differed sharply from the Confucian one. The legist doctrine was based on the unconditional primacy not so much of a written law as of an order from the authorities, an officially sanctioned regulation, the strength and authority of which should be based on discipline and punishment. According to the legist canons, wise reformers develop laws, the sovereign issues them, and specially selected officials and ministers put them into practice. Respect for the law and the administration is ensured by a system of mutual responsibility, which, in turn, adheres to the practice of punishments. Which are balanced by rewards for loyalty and an increase in social status.