Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion by Xinnong Cheng and Liangyue Deng is No. 1 primary source book recommended by National Certification Commissions for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. Many of reviewers said that this book is not good enough. The terminology used is unclear, unglossed, and totally non-standard. The quality of the writing ranges from marginal to completely unintelligible. Many basic essentials of acupuncture theory go unmentioned or covered in such an obscure and cursory manner as to be of no value to beginning students, for whom the book is supposedly intended, which is all the more ironic considering the book's title in earlier editions was "Essentials of Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion."However, it isn't all bad, the problem is that one can learn so much more from other texts such as Maciocia's Foundations of Chinese Medicine and Deadman, Mazin and Baker's A Manual of Acupuncture. This book tries to be comprehensive, but it is, at times, incomprehensible. For example, Maciocia's writings on TCM Syndrome Differentiation is much easier to comprehend than the equivalent chapters here.
This book also assumes too much. It does not recognize the fact that most westerners cannot readily grasp the marked differences in western and eastern philosophy. Again, this is a topic that Foundations (and Web that has no Weaver) covers much more excellently. Ultimately, if you must purchase only ONE book on Chinese medicine, this is neither the best nor the worst you can find, but it will be adequate.
Book Details
- Hardcover: 590 pages
- Publisher: Foreign Languages Press; 2 edition (April 1, 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 7119017586
- ISBN-13: 978-7119017587
- Book Dimensions: 10.4 x 7.8 x 2.2 inches
- List Price: $79.95
- Amazon.com Price: $63.70
- You Save: $16.25 (20%)