Waiting for the Dawn (book)
Waiting for the Dawn: A Plan for the Prince (translation by William Theodore de Bary for "Ming Yi Dai Fang Lu"; simplified Chinese: 明夷待访录; traditional Chinese: 明夷待訪錄) is a political work written by Huang Zongxi (1610-1695), known as "The Father of Chinese Enlightenment". This radical text openly criticises the absolute monarchy prevailing in China, and is interpreted by contemporary authors as a precursor of theories of civil rights and calls for a democratic political system. Huang first began writing the book in the eighteenth year of the reign of Shunzhi in the Qing Dynasty (1661), and completed it in the first year of Kangxi (1662), about a century before The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It would become highly influential during the late Qing’s Wuxu Reform and other attempts at establishing a constitutional monarchy in China. The English edition of Ming Yi Dai Fang Lu, translated by Wm.