Le Sacrifice au Ciel Dans la Chine Ancienne:

Paris: Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient, 2000. First Edition. Quarto in glossy grey and blue pictorial wraps; 261 pages: illustrations, maps; 24 cm. Abut fine(-) to near fine(+) with a wee bit of external curling & edge-wear; minor bindery gluing flaw to spine. . Paperback. ISBN: 126983262855397871

In French with some Chinese script throughout. Abstract in English at end of book: "This book analyses the origins of the sacrifice to Heaven during the Western Han dynasty. Until the end of the Chinese empire, the Son of HEaven went every year to the suburb of the capital to carry out the most solemn imperial rite: the sacrifice to Heaven. This sacrifice, strictly reserved for the sovereign, was called jiao, which also means "suburb". Traditionally, the jiao sacrifice is thought to have been inherited from antiquity. But by reviewing all the occurences of the word jiao in the ancient literature, the author shows that the eminent Han scholar Dong Zhongshu was in reality the first to convincingly argue for the antiquity of the rite in order to introduce it into the imperial ceremonial."