On Profit

1. Begin with the translator's preface or an introductory guide to grasp the historical background and core conceptual framework, which will ease the unfamiliarity of a first reading.
2. Read it alongside roughly contemporaneous political works such as China's Han Feizi or the West's The Prince to appreciate the similarities and differences in how civilizations approach governance.
3. Read with a critical eye, understanding the text within its specific historical context, and consider which principles retain analytical value beyond their era.

The Commercial Press is a publisher known for classic works and academic publishing, with titles spanning Eastern philosophy, foreign literature, world history, social culture, and applied psychology. Its list includes classical commentaries such as Zhu Xi's Collected Commentaries on the Analects and Wang Bi's Commentary on the Zhouyi, as well as modern annotated translations like Zhuangzi with Modern Notes and Translation. In foreign literature it offers War and Peace and Crime and Punishment, while in world history it carries Braudel's The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. Applied psychology is represented by Irvin D. Yalom's Existential Psychotherapy, and ethical texts include a Greek-Chinese-English edition of the Nicomachean Ethics. Its authors and translators include Zhu Xi, Wang Bi, Yalom, Braudel, and translators such as Huang Zheng, Zhang Yiling, Shen Dongyu, and Tang Jialong, balancing the editing of original texts with academic translation.