From the Opium War to the May Fourth Movement, a major work by Hu Sheng, is the fruit of years of research on modern Chinese history.
The book is written in five parts, with 27 chapters in all, and carries a preface. The author analyzes modern Chinese history in terms of three waves of revolution. In Part I, he writes about the Opium War and the Taiping Peasant Revolution, the first wave of revolution; in Part II, about the formation of a semicolonial and semifeudal regime, which was ultimately to lead to a new wave of revolution; in Part III, about the Reform Movement of 1898 and the Yi He Tuan (Boxer) Movement, which was the second wave of revolution; in Part IV, about the Bourgeois Revolution of 1911, the third wave of revolution; and in Part V, about the transition toward the New-Democratic Revolution that led China out of darkness.

Using primary sources, this book analyzes the key events in modern Chinese history, and reflects the Chinese people's struggle against foreign aggressors and their own feudal rulers as they fought for national independence, democracy and freedom from 1840 to 1919.

Following his earlier work Imperialism and Chinese Politics, this book is yet another contribution by Hu Sheng to the study of modem Chinese history.