The United States has been the worlds dominant super power for the last 70 years. It sets the rules for international relations and seeks to maintain the status quo. That situation is changing. China is expected to equal the United States in power within two decades, and relations between the two have become increasingly confrontational. American policy makers need to understand Chinese attitudes formed during 4,000 years of their history--as leaders of civilization until 1800--and then as impotent objects of exploitation and derision for the next 100 years. The Chinese have strong resentments against the nations of the West, resentments that pose a danger of future conflict unless American policy makers understand and attempt to mitigate them. Any evaluation of Chinas future actions that omits its long history treats relations between the two countries as mere questions of economic tensions, military power, and super-power ambitions. While these factors are important, so also is cultural memory. This book presents a concise but complete overview of Chinese history up to 2014 and indicates crucial lessons that should be drawn in order to facilitate peaceful trade and cooperation.

Robert Sheaffer minces no words, translating the proverb "Blessed are the poor" into "Stop blessing those who have made a mess of their lives." In his explosive, controversial book, Sheaffer predicts that a society which truly believes that failure is blessed will not long prevail on this earth. Excoriating "negative entropy" as a virtue, Sheaffer describes two fundamentally differing systems of morality which, he writes, have created a pervasive, complex conflict throughout the history of mankind. The first he describes as the pride of achievement; the second as the resentment felt against those who achieve by those who do not. These two foundations of morality are totally incompatible and antithetical, yet appear in varying degrees in all societies. When the morality of achievement predominates, Sheaffer writes, civilizations flourish in commerce, the arts, and science; societies leave a heritage of progress and achievement to future generations. When the morality of resentment gains the upper hand, civilizations decline and eventually perish. Sheaffer describes a civilization as the sum total of all the achievements of its people and, as achievement becomes increasingly discouraged, scorned, and even persecuted, the forward momentum of a society is halted and ultimately reversed. Only in decadent, declining societies, Sheaffer claims, is the whining of the inept mistaken for a lofty moral statement. Sheaffer recommends that achievers set a goal: helping those filled with resentment learn to achieve. The key element, he writes, is to prevent resentment from becoming a profitable strategy. Achievers must stop seeking to purchase the favorable opinion of those who vilify achievement and force the resentful to fall back on their own capacity to achieve - however meager that may be. The numbers of the resentful will continue to increase as long as the government subsidizes resentment by supporting any and all who refuse to accept the discipline of work. His final words to those who ascribe to the highest standards of civilization are "Fight Back." The future depends on whether resentment or achievement prevails as the dominant moral vision.

This work offers a detailed study of Kwangsi, the "model province" of Nationalist China, as it prepared for war with Japan in the 1930s. The author examines the theoretical and pragmatic origins of the Kwangsi Clique's ideology and describes the action taken by its citizen army against Japanese in the second Sino-Japanese War, incorporating an account of the reform programme instituted in Kwangsi during the preceding years.