This volume offers a concise overview of the classical period. Between an introductory chapter on the preceding centuries and a concluding chapter on the Chin Dynasty, six topical chapters—The Economy, The State, The Serving Elite, War and Peace, The People, and Transcendence—give a multifaceted sense of the classical period proper. Each chapter includes one or more ""methodological moments,"" which suggest how the textual problems have been solved, and 500 translated passages let the period speak with its own voice on topics from law to the mourning period of a parent, revealing both its ethnic and its philosophical diversity.
