The Limits of Change disputes the impression that the conservative ideas and styles of China's Republican period were neither strong nor persuasive enough to counter the ideas or the revolution of Mao. As the contributors to the book point out, these conservative movements reflected a modern outlook and shared a framework of common concepts with the radical movements they opposed.

In these essays we see the broad range of responses that conservatism in the Republican period took--from a new nativist historical consciousness, to quasi-Fascist theories of political...