A Comprehensive History of Chinese Legal Thought (Part Four)

Author: Chen Pengsheng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-03-01
Features: A Comprehensive History of Chinese Legal Thought, Volume 4 primarily discusses the 80-year period from the Opium War in 1840 to the May Fourth Movement in 1919, during which China gradually transformed from an isolated feudal country into a semi-colonial and semi-feudal nation. In modern China, where class and national conflicts reached an unprecedented intensity amid rapid social changes, various classes and strata formed distinct political factions and ideological viewpoints, engaging in debates and struggles over their stance toward imperialism, feudalism, and their autocratic systems. As a specialized history within modern Chinese history, the history of modern Chinese legal thought must reflect this historical process from a certain perspective.
China has a tradition of using legal reforms to drive social transformation. In the face of deepening national crises and extreme political corruption under the Qing Dynasty, the issue of legal system reform, closely tied to the evolving situation, inevitably drew increasing attention from all classes and strata, becoming a focal point of debates and struggles among factions. In the realm of legal thought, though the ideas of different classes and strata were intertwined and complex, they collectively represented a struggle between the feudal orthodox legal thought that upheld Confucian moral principles and the bourgeois legal thought that advocated democracy and republicanism. This struggle permeated the entire history of modern Chinese legal thought, serving as the main thread for understanding and examining its development.
This book is the fourth volume of A Comprehensive History of Chinese Legal Thought. It provides a detailed exposition of the evolution and development of legal thought in early modern Chinese civilizations. The book is comprehensive in scope, well-structured, logically organized, and supported by extensive evidence. It possesses high scientific rigor, systematicity, theoretical depth, and academic value, making it a valuable resource for legal researchers and judicial professionals to read, study, and reference.