Chinese Civilization and Bureaucracy: Variations on a Theme

A collection of translated articles mostly from the 1940s and 1950s. That might not sound too promising, but there are many insights here that are neither esoteric nor outdated. The author nicely portrays the unique aspect of Chinese imperial government: "rule by scholars". Good chapters on Chinese historiography emphasize the dominance of the scholarly perspective in official histories and the inability of western sinologists to bypass this perspective. The later essays deal mostly with specific Chinese philosophers, so they are probably of less interest to the general reader. But this is in any case a very informative supplementary work if you're reading up on Chinese history.