Mr. Ivan Chan motivated me to start writing something here so I should thank him. People who don¡¦t' like my writings don¡¦t' need to blame him; you simply don¡¦t load this page that's all.

I have started reading several books (other than my textbooks), and they are great. I say they are great because some really are great and I can feel it and thus write down a list of reasons to argue that they really are great; some are ¡§great¡¨ just because other people say they are great or the authors are famous so that I should believe they are great. In any case, they all are great, or at least, should be great.

The first one is this:

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I can¡¦t put it down after start reading it. The title itself is certainly heavy, and the author is a giant. So, I expected a huge (and difficult) book. To my surprise it¡¦s really quite thin. It¡¦s a series of 5 lectures the author delivered, while each lecture was limited to two hours.

The first thing is notice is the differences between this work and his classic ¡§An Outline of the National History¡¨ (my translation, "°ê¥v¤jºõ"). I started reading that when I was very young, like 8, without even being presented the basic facts of the history disused in that two-volume work. This is a majestic work, with very carefully phrased language and detail footnotes (which are in fact quite essential in understanding what he intended to say.). Now this thin book on my hand is quite different; I think because it was prepared in a hurry, the language is still clear while the punctuations are awkward. I was just in the middle of the second lecture and already seen more than 5 times that the author emphasized the lack of history of modern Chinese that made them to believe the governments of pre-modern China are all corrupt and worthless. Another misunderstanding of the modern Chinese is that pre-modern China is completely a dictatorship under the emperors, which is totally false, and this is severely criticized by the author.

In any case, although the author has put in his own opinion here and there, and quite explicitly sometimes, the text itself is nevertheless extremely clear and informative. The author also emphasized that no such policies can come from anywhere that is not related to the habits and culture of the people; any system of government eventually comes from the people themselves, and these people include everybody in the country, not just the occupant of any particular social classes.

I also want to talk about other books as well, but maybe let me do that tomolo, coz I know if you really are reading it (and I have to thank you) then your eyes must be tired by now.