Author Description

This book explores the life of a once-influential yet now largely forgotten figure who straddled the political and academic spheres of modern China. He was a professor at Peking University, once as renowned as Jiang Menglin and Hu Shih, and served as president of National Central University during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Recommended by Cai Yuanpei and Li Dazhao, he left academia for politics and became a leading left-wing figure of the Kuomintang (KMT), assisting Wang Jingwei-then regarded as Sun Yat-sen's successor-while championing "the cultivation and strengthening of democratic forces." In late 1938, after Wang Jingwei established a Japanese-collaborationist regime, Gu's impassioned dissuasion failed, prompting his break with Wang and alignment with Chiang Kai-shek's resistance camp. Disillusioned with both the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party, he relocated to Hong Kong in 1949 to lead the "China Freedom and Democracy Fighting League" (自由民主大同盟), joining Zhang Fakui in organizing a Third Force-an endeavor that ended in futile attempts against Cold War geopolitics.This book is the first academic biography of Gu Mengyu, detailing his political choices and interactions, the factional dynamics within the Kuomintang, and China'sintense transformations amid the Kuomintang-Communist conflict and the Cold War. His life reflects the era and the intellectual quest for China's future direction.