If you want to understand how China could fall from being the worlds most powerful nation to a third rate power in the 1930's this is the book.

It just provides the documents, you can do your own analysis.

Read official correspondence from the forbidden city to the Queen of England, letters between ministers demonstrating just how poorly the Chinese understood the importance of technology and industrialization.

This book is enlightening.

The book is excellent to build vocabulary and to learn how to read/write, but it won't teach you much grammar. I'm half Chinese and knew how to speak Chinese before reading this book. My problem was vocabulary and reading/writing. This book, the 1947 edition, is the one I always start with when I review Chinese (for reading/writing). Each chapter starts with a vocabulary list that consists of three columns: English, Pinyin pronunciation, and traditional Chinese Characters. Following are sections with sentences, dialogue, and notes (where word usage is explained). There is an index of characters and phrases at the end of the book organized by pronunciation. It also shows the traditional Chinese character to the left of the pronunciation. I don't think this book is good for someone who doesn't know any Chinese at all because it doesn't teach grammar. This book is an excellent start for someone who already speaks Chinese (doesn't need to know grammar) and only needs to build up vocabulary and learn how to read/write the traditional Chinese characters (not the simplified ones). I highly recommend this book if all you need is vocabulary to read/write traditional Chinese Characters.