ABSTRACT
The transition to the Ming was a return to Chinese rule in 1368, the formation of a highly successful dynastic polity, and a story of the continuing success and growth of the Confucian tradition. The Mongol Yuan dynasty was so much involved with its world empire that China, albeit a major part of the empire, was only one part of a more complicated pattern of rule. Metzger began his study of China's political culture by revisiting Max Weber's thesis that Confucianism did not have a transcendent vision that would allow Confucians to effectively critique the government. Wang Yang-ming's teachings began a process in the middle and late Ming period that gave rise to a turn to the individual, a turn that is unique in Confucian history. Yuan cultural life flourished in ways that compensated for the fall from grace of the Neo-Confucians as confidants of the emperor and his court.
