This book examines in detail the basic trajectory of the cultural transformation and brings to
light the extrinsic conditions and intrinsic mechanisms involved. It focuses on the period from
after the Opium Wars to the New Culture Movement as the New Culture Movement can be considered
a pivotal phase in the cultural transformation of modern-day China. The New Culture Movement
was a revolutionary eruption triggered by the accumulation of all the new qualitative cultural
factors since the Opium Wars. Superficially the movement's goal seemed to be to overthrow the
traditional culture. But in essence its true objective was to conduct an overall screening of
that culture. The book elaborates a broad variety of points in this context including: the
ideological and cultural evolution following the Opium Wars the pressing challenges faced by
Zhong Ti the initial shaping of social public and cultural spaces and major trends in
ideological and cultural transformation at the end of the Qing Dynasty the political disarray
and conflicts between the new and old ideology in the first years of the Republic the rise of
the New Culture Movement and the role of conservatism in the transition to a modern culture.
