In this book, China's struggle to modernize is set against a historical background. From the Opium War to Tiananmen Square, the authors narrate the great episodes that punctuate that journey: the breakdown of imperial China; the rise of the new Chinese republic; the early struggles between ideologies and armies of Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong; China's war with the Japanese; the final shootout that sent Chiang to Taiwan and Mao to Beijing; and the long years of the People's Republic - culminating in the reforms of Deng Xiaoping.