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This book is the representative work of the famous scholar Xiao Gongqin. It focuses on China in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and explores how a series of reforms in the late Qing Dynasty failed under the dual pressure of Western challenges and national crises. Why did the empire, which was in a major crisis, devote itself to reform only after nearly 60 years of continuous impact from Western challenges? Why did China not transform into a modern country after the Westernization Movement, and why the Qing government could not avoid the demise of the Qing government after the Reform Movement of 1898 and the New Deal in the late Qing Dynasty? What contradictions and dilemmas will the changes in the era of crisis and the game between radical and conservative encounter? In fact, delayed reforms will inevitably lead to immature revolutions. Although in the eyes of later generations, the Revolution of 1911 had great significance in overthrowing the imperial system, China has since fallen into a "weak state" state that lasted for decades. The subsequent cabinet crisis in the early Republic of China, the second revolution, warlord separatism, and the increasing fragmentation of the unified country can all be explained by the failure of the reforms in the late Qing Dynasty...

Since China entered the reform era, there have been two radical trends of thought. One is left-wing radicalism, which wants to return to the Mao Zedong era, and the other is right-wing radicalism, which advocates total Westernization and liberalism. Although they were gradually marginalized in China's social life ten years ago, they have become active in society again as the difficulties and contradictions that emerged in China's reform have become increasingly prominent. If further deepening of reforms cannot be carried out in a timely manner to resolve social conflicts, and instead we remain complacent, once the reform enters a locked state, conflicts will further intensify. If things go on like this, China may fall into serious crises and traps under the attack and impact of left and right radicalism-populism.

This book is a record of the thoughts of a humanistic intellectual in daily life in the era of great changes. It records the author's ideological changes in the form of a diary for more than ten years. It involves history and culture, politics and philosophy, literature and art, ideological trends and society, travel and life insights, etc. The author strives to use his own academic resources to think about and explain various doubts and problems that arise in reality.

This book is the memoirs of Mr. Xiao Gongqin, a famous Chinese historian. The Xiao family is a wealthy family in Hengyang, Hunan. The development and changes of the Xiao family in modern times are exactly the epitome of China's ups and downs in a century of history. Therefore, from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to the Anti-Japanese War, from the founding of New China to the War to Resist U. S. Aggression and Aid Korea, from the Cultural Revolution to Reform, the history of modern China has been truly recorded through the traditional form of family letters. The author Xiao Gongqin uses family letters as a starting point to reveal the unknown stories of his family that have been secreted for many years, and writes down the life experiences of some relatives and friends. From this, we can see the destiny of five generations of a family and the portraits of intellectuals in the changing times.