Three Kingdoms, 4 Vols.

The novel offers a startling and unsparing view of how power is wielded, how diplomacy is conducted, and how wars are planned and fought. This book has influenced the ways that Chinese think about power, diplomacy, and war, even to this day. Three Kingdoms portrays a fateful moment at the end of the Han dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D.220) when the future of the Chinese empire lay in the balance.