Book excerpt: This collection of essays written by his former students and colleagues represent the many foci of interest that Erik Zürcher has shared with them during his tenure as professor at Leiden University. They include discussions of Confucian philosophy, Buddhist and Christian polemics, the spread of Jesuit literature and anti-Christian attitudes among the literati, Ming aphorisms, the Chinese pictorial of skulls and skeletons, the Ch'ien-lung Emperor's eightieth birthday celebrations, Sino-Korean relations, and the "little traditions" in Chinese historical development, secret societies and kongsi. The book demonstrates how Zürcher inspired a wide range of interests in problems of Chinese history from heterodoxy, to local development, to hsiao-shuo traditions, but always in the highest traditions of philological scholarship.