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.