Assailing corruption, misrule, and neglect of the common people, Wang Fu's Essays of a Recluse (Qianfulun) offers a rare outsider view of culture, society, and government during the Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 CE).

Wang Fu (ca. 85-162 CE) was a scholar who lived on the western frontier of the empire during the Eastern Han dynasty. Said to be the son of a low-ranking concubine, he never held an official government post. The Qianfulun is his only surviving work.
Anne Behnke Kinney is professor of Chinese at the University of Virginia. She is translator of Exemplary Women of Early China: The Lienü zhuan of Liu Xiang (Columbia, 2014), among other books.
John S. Major, formerly professor of history at Dartmouth College, is an independent scholar. He is cotranslator of The Huainanzi (Columbia, 2010), among other books.