Herbert Giles was one of the most prominent Sinologists of the late 19th century and early 20th century and China and the Chinese was in its era one of the best-selling and most authoritative books on the topic. Originally published in 1902, Giles’ commentary on all thing Chinese, based on six lectures delivered at Columbia University in New York, still has a remarkable value for anyone trying to figure out the conundrum that is China. With a new foreword by long-time Chinese resident and observer, Graham Earnshaw.

Graham Earnshaw is a businessman, writer and musician with several decades of experience in the China world. He is Publisher of Earnshaw Books and has written a number of books, including On Your Own in China (1984), Tales of Old Shanghai (2008) and an account of his continuing walk across China, The Great Walk of China (2010). His translation of the Jin Yong kungfu novel Book&Sword was published by Oxford University Press. He has recorded a number of albums of his own songs, including Leap of Faith (1996), The Red Album (2011), and The Tao of Music (2013). He speaks Mandarin and Cantonese fluently, and his English is said to be acceptable. Herbert Allen Giles (born December 1845, died 13 February 1935) was a British diplomat, sinologist, and professor of the Chinese language. He was educated at Charterhouse School before becoming a British diplomat in China. He modified a Mandarin Chinese Romanization system earlier established by Thomas Wade, resulting in the widely known Wade–Giles Chinese romanisation system. Among his many works were translations of the Analects of Confucius and Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching, and, in 1892, the first widely published Chinese-English dictionary.