A groundbreaking and superlatively accurate new translation of Laozi’s The Dao De Jing, from the bestselling translator of The Art of War, promising to be the first English edition based on direct translation from the oldest known copies of the ancient Chinese text.

One of the most significant and popular books in the history of human thought, and China’s earliest philosophical classic, The Dao De Jing has served for millennia as a brilliant guide to living healthily and happily, to treating the Earth with respect, and to understanding our place in the cosmos.

The Dao is as vitally important to today’s world as it was during the Bronze Age, presenting us with clear and unexpectedly sane answers to some of the most pressing questions and challenges of our time. This beloved classic teaches us to become one with nature, with all people, and with the world; with the ultimate intention of illuminating the path to peace and promoting the conditions for harmony—within the self and in the greater world around us.

Renowned translator J. H. Huang has spent over two decades researching the Dao, resulting in the most accurate translation to date based on the oldest known transcripts of the text. Huang’s translation is the first to incorporate four major archaeological findings, which have been preserved for millennia in ancient tombs, most of which were only discovered in the late twentieth century: the Guodian Chu slips, the Mawangdui silk texts, the Fu Yi version, and the Peking University bamboo slips. Huang argues that these key source materials “contextualize The Dao De Jing much in the same way the Dead Sea Scrolls illuminate the New Testament.” The result is a groundbreaking translation that offers readers the first opportunity in over two millennia to thoroughly comprehend all of the teachings contained in these eighty-one chapters.