This volume will try to tell the story of what has happened in China during the last hundred years, from the cession of Hongkong in 1842 to the blitzkrieg of Pearl Harbor in 1941, with emphasis on the latter half of that period. A century is a long time, but of China's more than four thousand years of history it is but a small fraction, less than one fortieth. Yet the change China has gone through in that brief span is unprecedented in her long life. And now more rapid changes on a still larger scale are about to take place.

Jiang Menglin (1886-1964), was a notable Chinese educator, writer, and paramount politician. Between 1919 and 1927, he also served as the President of Peking University. He later became the president of National Chekiang University.