Excerpt from China in Transformation The first edition of China in Transformation appeared in 1898, at a time when signs of renascence were Obvious only to those who had the opportunity to look below the surface. The author's first imten tion in bringing out the present edition was merely to preserve those parts which appear to have a permanent value, but in practice it was found difficult to adhere to this, and the result is a book, of which many chapters are strictly new, while all have been carefully revised and brought up to date. If it appears that rather undue proportion is given to the history of the middle of last century, and especially to the diplomatic and commercial relations of that period, it must be' explained that the material for this was obtained by the author in 1897 from original sources no longer available either to the student or the general reader. For this reason, this portion has only been Slightly cur tailed, in order to fit into the general perspective. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.