The Daodejing encapsulates the main tenets of Daoism, a philosophy and religion whose dominant image is the Way, a life-giving stream that enables individuals to achieve harmony and a more profound level of understanding. This new translation draws on the latest archaeological finds and brings out the word play and poetry of the original.

Edmund Ryden teaches at Fujen University in Taiwan, mostly in Chinese but he has also taught translation in the graduate schools of religious studies and of translation. He was the first director of the John Paul II Peace Institute at Fujen University and edited a series of conference papers in the field of human rights. He also teaches human rights at Soochow University, Taiwan. He is the translator of Zhang Dai-nian'se Key Concepts of Chinese Philosophy (Yale, 2002).