The several timelines and short discussions in each page in this book make it easy for one to glance over and detect the cause-and-effects between successive events in recent China, that is: in the turbulent years from Opium War to Deng Xiao-Ping. An observation is: China has been deteriorating by itself for 40 years before the Opium war with Britain in 1839, then it took another 137 years including two internal revolutions, several more wars against external aggressors (especially the newly industrialized Japan), plus a devastating cultural revolution - before China could regain its footing and rejoined the world as equals. The politics in foreign countries relating to events in China are pointed out.