Because Chinese chararcters are not based on the alphabet, the ordering of characters in a dictionary is a formidable problem, particularly in a dictionary intended for use by non-Chinese. The Rosenberg Graphical System, a remarkably effective and efficient system for overcoming this difficulty has been in use in the former USSR for almost 80 years. Barlow makes this superb system available for the first time to English-speaking scholars by adding an English text to an existing Chinese-Russian dictionary (6,000 characters, 60,000 entries) in which the characters are ordered according to the graphical system.