This collection of essays, written by fellow-scholars and students of Derk Bodde for his seventy-fifth birthday, covers a wide variety of subjects spanning more than two thousand years of Chinese history, that is from
the Warring States (456-281 B.C.) with W. Allyn Rickett's study of Kuan Tzu 管子 to the modern day storyteller as described by Susan Blader. Although the focus is on traditional Chinese culture rather than contemporary China, no effort was made to systematically cover the successive periods or dynasties of Chinese history.