"One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2000" Perry Link is Professor of East Asian Studies at Princeton University, where he teaches modern Chinese language, literature, and cultural history. His books include Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies and Evening Chats in Beijing. Why do people in socialist China read and write literary works? Earlier studies in Western Sinology have approached Chinese texts from the socialist era as portraits of...

Written in China more than 2,000 years ago, Sun Tzu's classic The Art of War is the first known study of the planning and conduct of military operations. These terse, aphoristic essays are unsurpassed in comprehensiveness and depth of understanding, examining not only battlefield maneuvers, but also relevant economic, political, and psychological factors. Indeed, the precepts outlined by Sun Tzu can be applied outside the realm of military theory....