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...Chang's Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and Intellectual Transition in China is an outgrowth of his Ph.D. thesis. Nevertheless, it reads smoothly and does not attempt to overburden the reader with the useless facts or to overawe him with the writer's analytical skills. The author has attempted to show how currents of Western and traditional Chinese thought clashed in Liang's mind. Liang did not merely substitute Western ideas for those already present in the Chinese tradition. Liang would accept a particular Western idea, but he was perfectly willing to discard that idea if he found an element...
...among the Chinese, Liang favored rule by an elite styled after that of Meiji Japan where the nonelite majority of the community could also participate in the political process. In comparison with the basically Confucian doctrine which limited the reins of power to the Emperor and the scholar elite, Chang says that Liang's doctrine of popular participation in government was "essentially egalitarian...
...complex way in which Chinese and foreign ideas interacted in Liang's mind is a sobering reminder of the difficulties involved in communication between different cultures. Chang shows how Liang would favor those Western ideas which verified his predispositions (i.e. Benjamin Kidd's idea of sacrifice of the individual's rights in the present for the sake of the collective good in the future). The author has also shown how Liang misunderstood the philosophy of Jeremy Bentham...
...CHANG'S CHRONOLOGY of Liang's thought does not go past 1907 at which time Liang entered the practical world of politics where he had little success. Liang's rivals did not do so well either; under the revolutionary leadership of Sun Yat-sen they eventually lost their power to the wariords...
...writers-two novelists and a poet. In the past five years they have published nothing except for criticisms of revolutionary operas for local newspapers. They are still "studying" in order to carry out Mao's dictum that "all our literature and art are for the masses." Teng Feng-chang, 42, who published three novels and two collections of short stories before the Cultural Revolution, says: "We spend a lot of time going down to the factories, the mines and the countryside to get the feel of the people. Otherwise, what can we write about...