The Lost Three Hundred Years: China's Openness and Closeness After the Great Geographical Discovery (1516-1840) (Longitude and Latitude Series)

Guo Jianlong's new work on Chinese history! Recommended by Luo Zhenyu and Yu Minhong. Let you understand China's opening up and failure in the three hundred years from the late Ming Dynasty to the late Qing Dynasty. China has also had the opportunity to learn from the West and open up to the world. Whether it is technology, business, capital or institutions, China has had the urge to learn. China has opened up to the outside world more than once in its history, but if lessons are not learned, any opening up to the outside world will eventually return to the original point of closure after drawing a circle. The content described in this book is not to praise the greatness of ancient dynasties, but to explore China's objective gains and losses in the more than three hundred years from the geographical discovery to the outbreak of the Opium War. Let people understand that China is not inherently closed. It had a large-scale opening up hundreds of years ago and introduced all the most advanced Western technology and knowledge at that time. However, due to the nature of the feudal centralized regime, Chinese society forgot everything it had learned and returned to a traditional closed society.