Contents: Coming out of the Middle Ages: historical reflections on the late Ming to the late Qing -- The drama of "god-making" 360 years ago -- The Confucius of history and the history of Confucius -- Johann Adam Schall von Bell and Yang Guangxian -- Han learning and Western learning in the Eighteenth Century -- Yangming scholarship in early modern China -- A historical investigation into the early formation of the historical materialist viewpoint in China -- China's lost renaissance -- Appendix: The strange ideas of philosophers as one historical period supersedes another.

Keywords: Johann Adam Schall von Bell 湯若望, Yang Guangxian 楊光先, Kang Youwei 康有為, Neo-Confucianism , Historical materialism , May 4th movement, Hanxue 漢學.