I read this twenty years ago so mostly what I remember is that it was interesting (I hardly know any Chinese history before 1900), a bit dry in an academic text fashion, Chinese like to brag about their centuries of cuisine but there's an equally long history of torture, and an agent of the newly-created TSA told me I couldn't board my flight with that book since it had treason in the title (probably still something to watch out for, I think they are still not hiring the cream of the crop).