Historians v. China

Yes, this topic is "historians versus China." For a culture that has given so much to cultivation of scholars, China has been given scant recompense. Part of the reason is that the writing of history was established--in the sense of "made official"--too early. We find no Chinese Herodotus, no Thucydides. Sima Qian is a great man among the world's writers, not only China's, but his preferred format was like a combination of Plutarch and Pliny. That has made it much more difficult for modern historians to assemble the kind of narrative of the working-out of events that modern readers prefer.

Do any readers have suggestions for particularly good (or particularly bad, for that matter) books about the history of Ancient China for those who don't read Chinese?

My best source for ancient China is The Cambridge History of Ancient China. This volume was published in 1999 as a prequel to the Cambridge History of China series. It is arranged chronologically and topically and I have read different sections based upon my interests. The only problem is the price, $150.00 USD new or used.

Thanks, my main constraint is not money but reading time (vita brevis). But I expect good value from a USD 160 book. Peeking inside the Cambridge book via Amazon, only one or two chapters are about my main interest which is the messy unification process (Warring States) à la the Japanese sengoku jidai. So I will probably read that chapter in a library (as the book is clearly priced for that market).

My preliminary reading plan is to start with some general works (titles are in German and English due to paperback availability. Am I missing any good French ones?):
1. China. Eine Weltmacht kehrt zurück. by Konrad Seitz
2. Die chinesische Welt. Die Geschichte Chinas von den Anfängen bis zur Jetztzeit. by Jacques Gernet (or maybe not, given the low marks in LT?)
3. China: Empire and Civilization by Edward L. Shaughnessy
4. Das chinesische Denken. Inhalt. Form. Charakter. by Marcel Granet
5. Wissenschaft und Zivilisation in China I. by Joseph Needham, Colin A. Ronan

The closest books to my main interest in the Warring States that I have found so far, are:

1. Government of the Qin And Han Empires: 221 BCE-220 CE by Michael Loewe
2. Ancient Chinese Armies 1500-200 BC (Osprey 218) by C.J. Peers

Are there good literary works for period flavour (such as Taiko, Shogun or Musashi for the Japanese period) to complement my reading (again in any major European language)?

Granet is rather outdated even by sinological standards. A more recent work on a subject close to that of (4) is Intellectual foundations of China by Frederick Mote. Reading the first volume of Needham you should be prepared for grossly old-fashioned sinological scholarship at fire-hose volume; to give just one example, Needham not only buys into the discredited notion that characters are ideograms with meanings that can be worked out by analyzing their components, he devotes eleven full pages to a list of such dissections which he calls "ideographic etymologies." Still, Needham is must reading for the technical background we need to read the texts.

Literary works from this era other than poetry are few, and are chopped up into essays and anecdotes in a way the western reader finds frustrating. The Fogies suggest the following subtitle for every work of philosophy from the period: "How to win policy arguments at the court of a ruler, illustrated with copious examples."

A work that Herman Hesse liked so much he mentioned in his preface to Glasperlenspiel is Frühling und Herbst des Lü Bu We, translated by Richard Wilhelm.

Some library in Vienna must have Burton Watson's Early Chinese literature. Go through that with a pencil and notebook and you'll get some good suggestions and much useful background.

Michael Loewe is very good for the Han era; he has several books all worth reading.

(Added later) You will enjoy a book that is quite old now but still very informative, Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China by Arthur Waley.

The Cambridge History is available in three copies in different libraries, so I will check out chapter 9 written by Mark Lewis who according to Amazon will publish a new book in April "The Early Chinese Empires".

Again, many thanks in helping me targeting my reading. I just spent 100 EUR in paperbacks via Amazon ...

"... illustrated with copious examples." The trash-comic book 100 Strategies of War illustrates that kind of Chinese Scholasticism. The examples also suffer from the limited range of Chinese names ...

Regarding literary works, I thought more of (fairly) modern writers in the hopefully less flowery style of the visually stunning films Hero or The First Emperor.

IMHO, a particularly dull introductory history is L. Carrington Goodrich, A Short History of the Chinese People. The author tends to catalog political, technical, and artistic events/achievements of each major period, rather than tell the story or develop themes. The book is therefore packed with a good many facts, but still manages to diminish the reader's enthusiasm for reading more Chinese history.

Yes, Mark Edward Lewis is very good. His Sanctioned Violence in Early China and Writing and Authority in Early China are both great.