Politics, Leadership, and Wisdom

In this article, we examine the German context within which Richard Wilhelm (1873-1930) completed his translation of the Yijing (Book of Changes). Particularly we focus on the decades-long partnership between Wilhelm and the Baltic philosopher Hermann Keyserling (1880-1946), who not only shaped his political view but also encouraged him to use the Yijing to speak to his fellow Germans in times of crisis. We argue that this partnership was crucial in transforming Wilhelm into a translator-educator. Finally, after spending years to translate and re-translate the Yijing, Wilhelm came to the conclusion that the classic was not merely a Chinese text from the Confucian canon. Instead, he viewed it as a "world literature" (Weltliteratur) that dispensed profound wisdom to people around the world, including Germans who suffered from the catastrophe of WWI.