Transliteration was understandably a major challenge in a collection that includes primary sources from close to a dozen Asian countries and regions. We are in great debt to a number of contributors for the advice on how to transliterate personal names and place-names in English.
We have rendered East Asian names in the original order, surname first (however, the order in the English-language sources has been left unchanged), and have Romanized East Asian languages according to the Hepburn system for Japanese, the Revised Romanization of Korean from 2000 for Korean, and Pinyin for Chinese. When Japanese place names are established in English, macrons are omitted (e.g., Tokyo, not Tōkyō; Osaka, not Ōsaka; Ryukyu, not Ryūkyū; and so on). They were also not added when missing in the English-language original. In cases where the Wade-Giles Romanization for Chinese terms is commonly used in the West, it has been added in brackets on the first appearance of the term in each chapter. Cross references in brackets refer to volume and chapter number, i.e., II:10 refers to vol. 2, chapter 10 of this work. In the case of personal and place-names in Chinese and Korean that are long familiar in the West, such as Chiang Kai-shek or Sun Yat-sen, we have adhered to the common usage. In such cases, the Pinyin Romanization is given in brackets on the first mention.
Most texts included have been translated into English expressly for this collection. In such cases, the name of the translator (contributor) appears at the heading of the source. Some texts, however, were originally written and published in English. Such texts are reproduced faithfully with only obvious typographical errors being corrected. Any additions by the editors or contributors are placed in square brackets.
In order to ensure coherence and the uniformity of this work, the editors felt it necessary to make some editorial changes to the commentaries and translation. Generally, we gave priority to the readability over literalness and close philological adherence to the original. The editors assume the responsibility for any errors that may have resulted from this editorial policy.