A revealing series of conversations that did more to help me understand the political context of China between 1912 and the Cultural Revolution than "Neo-Confucianism" as a philosophy, which was more my interest coming into the book. It might have been helped if Alitto was a better interviewer, but unfortunately I found him fairly pedantic and unwilling to pursue the really interesting questions throughout. Still, there are great tidbits throughout, including anecdotes about some of the biggest names in 20th century China (Liang Qichao, Zhou Enlai, and Mao himself all feature), and the few sections where Liang goes into real detail about his personal philosophy are always compelling. I did come away from this thinking that Liang was a genuinely great man, if not quite the standout figure that Alitto clearly thinks of him as being. On the other hand, Alitto accidentally gave us a good read on the challenge of a historian approaching the real individual behind their study.