Western practitioners are often out at a disadvantage when it comes to studying the roots and principals of Traditional Chinese Martial Arts. We are often left to "oral histories" from teachers and friends. Unfortunately this can lead to a sort of inbred opinion regarding other style within a particular branch of the same martial art.
The guy that runs this website is translating articles from Chinese into English and publishing them on his site. Go check him out. Great stuff.
http://wulinmingshi.wordpress.com/about/