Abstract:  Has Man a Future?—Dialogues with the Last Confucian gives a chronological account of the conversations in 1980 between Liang Shuming, one of the early representatives of modern Neo-Confucianism, and Guy S. Alitto, renowned American sinologist and translator of the book. In these conversations, they discussed the cultural characteristics of Confucianism, Buddhism, Daoism, and their representative figures, and reviewed the important activities of Mr. Liang’s life, e.g., teaching at Peking University, engaging into the Rural Reconstruction Movement, founding the China Democratic League, etc., along with Liang’s reflection on his contact with many famous people in the cultural and political realms – Li Dazhao, Chen Duxiu, Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, Chiang Kai-shek, Kang Youwei, Hu Shi, to name but a few. Rich in content, these conversations serve as important reference materials for understanding and studying Mr. Liang Shuming’s thought and activities as well as the social and historical events of modern China. This English version, upon its coming out, has aroused much interest home and abroad. Francesco Sisci, the Asia editor of La Stampa published a review “Deeper Unity Lurks in Confucian Embrace” on Asia Times, in which he argued that respect and tolerance, and the “emotional basis” embraced in Chinese tradition, will bring to the West what it may need now.


Preface
I am honored to be able to write a preface to this volume.
First I want to explain how this dialogue between Mr. Liang Shuming and me came about.
I became interested in Mr. Liangs life and career as a graduate student at Harvard University and took it as the subject of my Ph.D. dissertation. I gathered materials in Taiwan and Hong Kong as well as sought out and interviewed [many of] his old friends and acquaintances. Because of the Sino-American political situation at the time I never had an opportunity to go to China and meet personally the subject of my research Mr. Liang. In the first part of 1973 I had my first opportunity to go to China. For an American to be able to go to China at that time was still extremely unusual. Why was I able to make the trip？ After President Nixon visited China several Chinese delegations visited the United States in succession and I served as their interpreter and so became a channel of communication between the two countries. So in 1973 my wife and I had this rare opportunity to visit China. At the time the first request I made of the Chinese was that I hoped I could meet with Mr. Liang. But because it was the time of the Cultural Revolution and a very sensitive time my wishes to paymy respects to Mr. Liang were not answered so I could only return regretfully to America.