The book is about conversations in 1980 between Liang Shu-Ming, one of the early representatives of modern Neo-Confucianism, and Guy S. Alitto, a renowned American sinologue and translator of the book. The selected conversations that best reflect Liang's thought and experience, reviewing the social and historical events of modern China, along with Liang's reflection on his contact with many famous people, e.g. Li Dazhao, Chen Duxiu, Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Chiang Kai-shek and Hu Shih, can be considered as a good reference to the research and understanding of modern China in the first half of the 20th century.