A key question to Chinese society is whether it has successfully got rid of despotism, the evil blocker of social development.
Have the despotism bureaucracy, emperor, and folk mentality changed? This book reviews the history of the recent 200 years, and explores the question of democracy in China.
this is a historic book written by Professor Qin Hui, a respectable scholar in mainland china. Prof. Qin taught in Qinghua University several years ago, where his contract didn't get renewed because of his rebellious opinions on history and social problems. this book focuses on history of thought from late Qing to ROC, mainly discussed how intellectuals at that time thought of tradition and modernity. the author tried to combine ideas of ancient china, modern china, japan and the west together, in order to restore the real thought at that time. many chapters of this book were published on journals in mainland china, but it was banned by government in a short time after the book was published.
I read through it quickly and wondered why it could be banned, but the further I went, the more I was relieved.Qin Hui is supposed to have been hovering near the border of censorship during the writing process.Many arguments are not presented, but as the argumentative examination continues, the reader can naturally appreciate his ideas.
His view: the Chinese have not been able to get out of the imperial system, the Chinese are still in the Qin system
I don't think many would disagree to call Qin Hui one of the wisest/sharpest minds and one of the few of true character/integrity in contemporary China
The author of this book, Professor Qin Hui, has a strong insight. This book accurately points out that the problem of contemporary China lies in the monarchy. The author takes demographic changes as an example to strongly demonstrate the harm of monarchy. After reading this book, I found that all problems in China can be analyzed from the perspective of monarchy.