Though not stated openly, Sterckx, for the majority of the book, sets Chinese thought as a sort of rivalry between Confucianism and Mohism. You can easily see a bias towards the former, though he is not unkind towards the latter (Legalism, however, receives only a lukewarm defense).

He takes a topic and writes about the Confucian view and then (usually) Mozi’s view, with sprinklings of Legalistic and Daoist views (Buddhism doesn’t come up in detail until 3/4 of the way through the book).

Though he talks about Chinese philosophy, he is not really writing a book about Chinese philosophy. I struggled to best explain what he is doing and I settled on calling it ‘intellectual history of the elites.’ It was fascinating read and I love that he has some a long section with additional suggested reading, but it still felt just a little thin. For a thick tome, it was strangely shallow.