A Cure for Chaos is one of the recent titles in Princeton University Press’s book series “Illustrated Library of Chinese Classics,” aimed at showcasing the Chinese classics in Zen Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and more, in graphic form. With illustrations by the renowned illustrator CC Tsai, translation and introductory commentaries by philosophy professor Brian Bruya of Eastern Michigan University, the books in this series visualize the ideas that characterize Chinese philosophy.

The titles in this series provide accessible primers into the Chinese classics, and promise to be useful and widely adopted in the college classroom. In particular, readers who are Chinese-language learners or eager to hone their reading abilities in classical Chinese, can compare the original text provided on each page with Bruya’s translation in the text bubbles.

The overall breezy narrative, simple illustrations and pithy texts make for easy reading.

A Cure for Chaos is a modern translation of Mencius, one of the four books in the Chinese Confucian tradition. I have not yet read all the other titles in the series, but A Cure for Chaos as a collaborative project between Tsai and Bruya evidences considerable synergy. The overall breezy narrative, simple illustrations and pithy texts make for easy reading. At the end of each brief story, Bruya concludes with a brief summary—lest the reader miss the point.

There are more profound lessons, however, that the authors hope a discerning reader would glean. Bruya’s preface notes that while much of A Cure for Chaos might come off as commonsense morality, there are “deeper levels of understanding that repay frequent reading and rumination.” The writer Christine Gross-Loh’s foreword to the book, likewise notes that far from providing simply nuggets of wisdom, Mencius existed within various webs of interactions that in turn shaped his writings.

In A Cure for Chaos, readers are first introduced to the biography “The Life of Mencius” (371-289 BCE) before being immersed in a series of moral fables that elucidate the philosopher’s writings and teachings. Living through what is known as the Warring States period in Chinese history, Mencius’s writings ruminate on how the core concepts of kindness (ren) and morality (yi) are central in navigating the turbulent times. Bruya’s deft translation and summaries make clear that what Mencius advances are the moral lessons of cooperation for collective benefit, moral decision making, principles of governance, and individual propriety and ethics. The Mencian vision of a moral society has implications both on the levels of individual morality and choice, as well as top-down statecraft.

The continued presence of East Asian philosophies in the college classroom reflects at least some scholarly consensus that these ideas merit our continued engagement.

Tsai and Bruya’s decision to make extensive use of one-to-two-page-long vignettes makes for easy accessibility. Sections such as “Punishing the Wicked”, on the necessity even of assassinating sovereigns who have forfeited position, seem uncanny given the increasing visibility of political violence today. Other sections, such as “Child Near a Well” on universal morality, or “Kindness and the Way” present fables for individual morality and aspirational ideals to live by.

It is to Tsai and Bruya’s credit that this volume conveys this range of themes and emotions in animated, vivid detail. Michael Puett, in his foreword to CC Tsai’s earlier illustration of the Analects, notes that the moods, expressions, and utterances that shape interpretation are a major contribution of this illustrated series. A Cure for Chaos delivers on this front too. For instance, the Mencian exhortation of “Reducing Desires” might ring hollow as victim blaming in a world of war and famine. However, visualizing a bearded old man and his comically fruitless task of trying to regain self-control, one detects a sense of irony or auto-critique beyond the philosophical nugget of wisdom. Likewise, Tsai’s illustration of the questioner in “Punishing the Wicked” on the permissibility of assassinating the wicked ruler, also reveals more than a hint of mercenary self-interest beyond superficial moralizing.

For a nonspecialist reader, I must confess that the deeper levels of philosophical meaning and significance may require more prolonged meditation. But reading A Cure for Chaos in 2025, in a world dealing with various forms of chaos—from horrific manmade disasters, genocide, starvation and ecological destruction —I was made to reflect on how the Chinese classics present a way forward in these most chaotic of times? No doubt, the decision of Princeton University Press to devote an entire series to these classics, and the continued presence of East Asian philosophies in the American college classroom, reflect at least some scholarly consensus that these ideas merit our continued engagement. Readers of different persuasions will no doubt glean different lessons from A Cure for Chaos, but this accessible volume and titles in the ongoing book series in press will hopefully provide one platform for such ideas and debates to circulate.

Joshua Tan is a Singapore-based historian and researcher.