This book is based on my doctoral thesis. Over the eight years I have spent on this project, I have benefited greatly from the support and encouragement of many people. I am deeply grateful for the kind help and inspiring advice of Oleg Benesch, who is the best supervisor I can ever imagine. I thank Jonathan Howlett and David Clayton, who have provided so many helpful suggestions in the course of framing and writing my thesis in York.
I also thank Rana Mitter, Marilyn Levine, Q. Edward Wang, Elizabeth Perry, Michael Schoenhals, Weili Ye, Kristin Stapleton, Miles Taylor, Wang Qisheng, Tang Chi-hua, Huang Ko-wu, Pan Kuang-che, and Sha Dongxun for their constructive suggestions and generous help. My warm thanks go to Kevin Ward, my best friend in the UK, who has deepened my understanding of not only history but also religion and music.
My biggest debt is to Ya-pei Kuo, who has always been so warm-hearted and enlightening. She read the book manuscript and provided me with very useful and incisive advice. It is with great sadness that she passed away just several months before the book is published, and I will always miss her.
My writing has been kindly supported by libraries and archives. I thank the librarians from the Harvard-Yenching Library, the Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Columbia University, the National Archives in Kew, the Brotherton Library of Leeds University, the SOAS Library, the British Library of Political and Economic Science at LSE, the Asia Library of Lund University, the libraries of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Fung Ping Shan Library of the University of Hong Kong, the Sun Yat-sen Library of Guangdong, the libraries of Sun Yat-sen University, the library of the CASS Institute of Modern History, the Chinese National Library, and the Peking University Library.
My project has received funding from a variety of sources. I thank the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation, the Santander International Connections Award, the Universities’ China Committee in London, the Global Scholarship Programme for Research Excellence funded by the Worldwide Universities Network and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Lund-York PhD Student Desk Exchange, the YGRS Conference Fund, and the MacCormack Travel Fund.
Portions of the second and third chapter are reproduced from one of my published articles (“Democracy, Enlightenment, and Revolution: Cantonese Marxists and Chinese Social Democracy, 1920–1922”, Modern China, vol.48, no.1, 2022, pp.167–196). They are reprinted here by permission.
This book would not have been possible without the deep love and patient forbearance of my wife, Tingting. She has always been the first reader of my writings and has often provided me with inspiration. This book is dedicated to her.