This monograph reviews recent books on the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) to help the generalist or student become familiar with existing evaluations and identify best practices for assessing Chinese military affairs. The structure is deliberately designed to help readers build a solid foundation for understanding the PLA and develop a progressively more sophisticated perspective. Ten appendixes provide additional resources including an extensive bibliography on PLA and Chinese security affairs as well as short guides on where to find regular PLA-related analysis, what Chinese-language sources to acquire, and whose analysis to follow.