Rickett Allyn. Guanzi: Political, Economic, and Philosophical Essays from Early China. Volume 2

Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998. — 578 p.The Guanzi (Book of Master Guan), which bears the name of a famous seventh century b.c minister of the state of qi Guan Zhong (d. 645 b.c.) is certainly one of the largest of the pre-Han or early Han politico-philosophical works, exceeding 135,000 characters in length and containing material written by a number of anonymous writers over a long period of time. Noted for its wealth of material concerning early Chinese economic and political theory, the Guanzi is especially famous for its concept of qing zhong, "light and heavy", which advocates the manipulation of the amount of coinage in circulation to control the supply of grain and commodities, and thus may constitute the world’s earliest statement of quantitative theories of money. However, the Guanzi also contains a great deal of other material, including military theory, sociological information, as well as a particularly rich store of early historical romance literature and Daoist, Naturalist, and Huang Lao writings. The political writings are usually described as legalist, but "Realist" may be a better description.