Zhong Guo Ren Shi Gang (literally “An Outline of Chinese History”) takes readers on a tour from 3000 BCE to the end of Boxer Rebellion in the early 20th Century. But this is not a mere outline, as the title claims. This is a comprehensive look at Chinese society throughout history, including the rise and fall of dynasties, kingdoms, philosophies, and trends. Boyang tracks the changes in China’s economic development, as well as its borders. He also pays attention to the social conditions of the people at large, and how they were affected by changes in government and philosophy.

Boyang wrote the manuscript for Zhong Guo Ren Shi Gang when he was a political prisoner in Taiwan. First published in 1979, this two-volume work was perhaps the first Chinese chronology to express time using a Western format, using centuries and BCE/CE. Up until then, time had been expressed in terms of each emperor’s reign. For example the 20th year of emperor Dao Guang’s reign may not mean much to an average person who is not familiar with emperors and their reign names. This, however, was the year of the Opium War (1840), which eventually led to the Treaty of Nanking and China’s loss of Hong Kong to England. Reign names made it difficult to map China’s development to that of other countries. In this book, each chapter covers a century; at the end of the chapter, a brief chronology of major world events is presented. This gives readers a better opportunity to place Chinese history in its global context.