Almost 80 years ago, Thomas Meadows, back in England on leave from the British consular service in China, wrote one of the largest books on China from the mid-19th C, The Chinese and their Rebellions. In the midst of its 656 pages were two notable accounts, one of Meadows’ activities in the Taiping rebellion of the 1850s, and the other on his ideas on rebellions and revolutions, the former seen as indigenous, and even necessary for the success of the 2000 year Chinese dynastic survival.

About 100 years later in Nanjing, in 1947, soon after Japan was defeated, Chiang Kai-shek’s Officer’s Moral Endeavour Association (OMEA) was publishing pamphlets that might prove interesting and useful for foreign, mainly American, military personnel in China. Meadow’s book attracted the attention of one of the OMEA writers, V. S. Phen, who juxtaposed extracts from Meadows with commentaries on the situation in post-war China. An account of Meadows and the later commentary can be found in the attachment.