Wasserstrom argues that students became particularly good at mimicking the practices of government officials, which made their causes seem legitimate.
[5] David Strand praised the monograph as a "major contribution" because it "offers a model for rethinking the late imperial, Republican and Communist periods as a historical unit conditioned by indigenous and global forces, and explained by Sinological and comparative models.
[7] Wasserstrom argues that, while historians should be suspicious of those who propagate this image, they should not underestimate the city's potential for cultural innovation.
Wasserstrom's view is that, like the United States, China has enormous ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity.
Barrett L. McCormick, for instance, had some misgivings about Wasserstrom's claim that Mao Zedong was, like Andrew Jackson, a man of the people who committed some atrocities, but McCormick concluded that "if someone asks you to recommend a first book on China that he or she can read on the plane, this is the best book available.