Abstract

This little book was written more than ten years ago, and soon after its publication, it appeared that some statements in it were unsatisfactory. The examination of it during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution brought those problems in it into sharper focus. The statements about society in the Ch'in and Han periods particularly contained obvious errors. I have taken the opportunity offered by this second edition to correct the errors and unsatisfactory statements and to resolve the problems that troubled me. However, because it was an old work, it was difficult to make too many changes in it and still retain its original form, and after I had made the changes, I felt some of its defects remained. The following discussion of two problems shall more or less correct the defects which remained in it after revision