”In the late 1940s the Chen family gathered for a dusk-time ritual at their hillside home in Berkeley, California to "watch the sun go home" to their native China. Having fled persecution in Chunking during the Sino-Japanese war (1937-45), the Chens settled briefly in Peking, then escaped to the U.S. during the intensifying civil war. Repatriated and classified as "national bourgeois" in the early 1950s, following the peaceful Communist takeover of Peking, the Chens were yet to endure the cataclysmic violence of the Cultural Revolution - separation, imprisonment, internal exile and "re-education" in the "cadre schools" designed for ideological criminals. In June of 1989, while in the United States as part of an educational exchange, separated from her children in China, the author learned of the massacre in Tiananmen Square. After her condemnation of the regime was broadcast on national television, Chen Chen abandoned hope of returning to China. The shrewd, defiant young woman whose story this is - a mother, writer, musician and book collector - tells of a life spent in two worlds, one lived in the East, one in the West; one of prosperity and privilege, one of poverty amid the tumult of history.”

Dangdai mingren texie 當代名人特寫 / Zhang Ruogu zhu 張若谷著.

“本書分為外國之部與中國之部. 中國部分介紹林森, 蔣介石, 于斌, 陸徵祥, 林語堂, 梅蘭芳, 郎静山等7人. 外國部分介紹喬治六世, 貝當, 奎松, 羅曼羅蘭等7人. 附錄: 雷鳴達神父, 馬君武博士等”
民國30 [1941]

Guochao xianzhenglu 國朝獻徵錄 " .... most voluminous and important collection of biographies of eminent people living between the beginning of the [Ming] dynasty and the early Wanli period. The biographies are written by various authors and collected from the Veritable Records, epitaths, and other inscriptions, obituaries, family chronicles, and various other sources ... begun about 1594 and printed in 1616 ... Prohibited ..." Cf. Franke, W. An introduction to the sources of Ming history, p, 78 (entry 3.1.2)

Yu -- Confucius (Kongzi) -- The first Emperor of Qin (Qin Shihuang) -- Sima Qian -- Wang Mang -- Ban Zhao -- Zhuge Liang -- Hui Neng, the sixth patriarch -- Empress Wu -- Su Dongpo -- Yue Fei -- Qiu Chuji, the Daoist -- Wang Yangming -- Zheng Chenggong (Coxinga) -- The Qianlong Emperor -- Hong Xiuquan, the Heavenly King -- Liang Qichao -- The Kuomintang legacy -- Mao Zedong.