Old Photographs — A Visual Chronicle of 20th Century China

Author: Nan Zhaoxu
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 1998-06-01
Features:
1. The comprehensive record combines the formats of chronology and news reporting, emphasizing the news sense, with the focus on "at that time" or "today." It transforms history into news and weaves news into history, serving both academic research and learning purposes.
2. The content of this book is divided into six parts: Chronology, Reports, Special Topic Photos, Beijing Photos, Columns, and National History Archives.
3. The Chronology section records important events of the period in chronological order.
4. The Reports section explicitly indicate the time at the beginning, such as: "On September 5, the Qing government announced... arranged in newspaper-style format according to the importance of the event."
5. The book features dedicated columns to expand knowledge, enhance readability, and add interest.
6. Names of individuals are referred to directly, but titles may be added before names for identification, such as: Shandong Provincial Governor Yuan Shikai.
7. Administrative divisions, such as city names and village names, are marked with their respective levels, such as: Nanchang City, Xibaipo Village.
8. Numbers in the text are expressed in Arabic numerals followed by units, such as: 3,000 planes, $1.2 million. However, proper nouns are written in Chinese, such as: the Fourteenth National Congress.
9. Dates are all expressed in the Gregorian calendar, with times measured in 24-hour format, such as: 5:30:28.
10. Titles of books, periodicals, poems, paintings, and other proper nouns are enclosed in quotation marks, such as: the Constitution of the Republic of China, "Practice Is the Only Criterion for Testing Truth."
11. The narrative in the text strives for objectivity, comprehensiveness, and accuracy. This book, in the form of news records, collects major events from various periods of modern Chinese history over the past century, including Chronology, Reports, Special Topic Photos, Background Photos, Columns, and National History Archives. It combines the formats of chronology and news reporting, emphasizing the news sense. The book is grand in scale, rich in content, rigorous in argumentation, thorough in discussion, and detailed in data. It is a large-scale historical work of high academic value, literary value, and collectible value. The strong news sense makes history feel as if it is happening right before your eyes.