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The Opium War is a topic that both China and Britain should face together, and this new book by Ms. Lan Shiling, a cutting-edge British sinologist, examines it from a broader perspective. It aims to allow us to transcend regional restrictions and seriously reflect on the evils and contradictions of this world conflict. Lan Shiling fully absorbed existing relevant research results (such as Mao Haijian's "The Collapse of the Celestial Dynasty: Re-Study of the Opium War"), and was able to find more moving historical details in original Chinese and English historical materials. Thanks to her profound literary attainments, historical figures such as Lin Zexu, Qi Shan, and Yi Lu seem to emerge before her eyes through her descriptions. In addition to detailing the war process, Lan Shiling also described the complex historical memories of the war between the Chinese and British people, especially the role it played in the construction of China's modern nation.