士变: 近代中国的思想转折

Liang Qichao once remarked that modern China was in a transitional era of "waves rising and falling, one after another." As scholars were "at the head of the four classes," the evolution of China at various levels, from worldly affairs to people's minds, often carried the connotation of a "scholarly transformation," and was also key to the great changes of the era.
Before the large-scale arrival of Western influence, Chinese scholarship itself had already given rise to the new learning of the Daoguang and Xianfeng eras, characterized by "doing what predecessors had not done." However, the full impact of Western influence caused an ideological shock among scholars, leading to modern Chinese academia and society gradually losing their center of gravity. Intellectuals first faced the immense change of "two paths emerging" from China and the West, and then had to adapt to the situation of "three paths emerging" due to the fragmentation of the West. They had no choice but to explore China's subjectivity amidst the tension between the nation and culture.
This new general treatise aims to examine the interaction between the changing worldly affairs and people's minds in modern China, with the transition from "rule by scholars" to "scholarly transformation" as its central theme. It hopes to demonstrate the role of thought in historical events, and also strives to reveal the transformation of thought amidst societal changes.