文明小史

Li Baojia's satire of the enlightenment fashion that swept China in the last years of the Qing, as young men from the provinces seek foreign learning with no idea what it is. Blundering reformers, officials and students make up the cast. This book uses the racial and other slurs of its period as written; the Book Guide explains these words where they occur.

Summary written with Claude Sonnet 5.5.