Tides from the West recounts the stories of China during the century from the signing of the Treaty of Nanking between China and Britain in 1842, which ceded Hong Kong Island, to the Pearl Harbor incident in 1941. This period marked the beginning of an extraordinary era in history, where conflicts among various human groups and the friction between Eastern and Western cultures converged during this tumultuous time.
      Jiang Menglin experienced a journey from the traditional private academies of Chinese scholars to the liberal institutions of the West, from the ancient rural society to the modern urban civilization, and from living under the autocratic rule of imperial dynasties to undergoing the transformative baptism of revolutionary ideas. He spent years among diverse foreign communities and lived extensively among Chinese people, especially among intellectual youth. Immersed in the vortex of cultural and ideological exchanges between East and West, he also witnessed the dramatic upheavals and transformations of the world. The Tide of the West does not reflect Jiang Menglin's life story but rather the era he lived through and experienced.