Tang Degang | The Late Qing Dynasty

Tang Degang studied at National Central University during the Anti-Japanese War, under the tutelage of Guo Tingyi. Later, he went to North America and had a teacher-student relationship with Hu Shi. After obtaining a Ph.D. from Columbia University, he taught at Columbia University and City University of New York. “The Last 70 Years of the Qing Dynasty” was a work he compiled and edited from many of his old works after his retirement from City University in the early 1990s. Perhaps for this reason, the book at first glance looks like a collection of historical essays arranged according to thematic chronology. The most obvious evidence is that almost every chapter ends with a statement “Originally published in a certain magazine in a certain year and issue” –– probably to solve copyright issues. Such a loose structure, with subtle clues and foreshadowing, not to mention, there are many places where the text is similar in different chapters, and similar historical materials and viewpoints often appear repeatedly. In addition, the old gentleman likes to comment and evaluate people, especially likes to compare several famous leaders of the Kuomintang and the Communist Party with the late Qing officials such as Zeng, Zuo, Li, Zhang, Yuan, Sun, Kang, and Liang, laughing and scolding. Although there is no lack of true insights, sometimes it also gives people a feeling of being far-fetched, verbose, and even carrying private goods. If you can persevere in reading it, I think Mr. Tang’s book wins in three points. First, the vernacular of the Republic of China scholars, coupled with Tang’s style of jokes and jokes, has a unique reading experience. Second, the author has been studying history for decades, teaching and learning from each other, whether it is anecdotes or research experience, he can easily bring it up, with a large amount of information. Third, people like me who have almost no understanding of this period of history, which is almost entirely based on middle school textbooks, will find it has a novel perspective, and even subverts cognition in some aspects.