Living and Settling

"Spanning from individual psyches to the grand narratives of an era, this book mirrors China's century-long transformation.

从个体心态到时代史诗，折射中国百年大变革。

The life aspirations of intellectuals can manifest in three distinct dimensions of human concern: social (political) concern, cultural (value) concern, and intellectual (professional) concern. These represent three different levels of existential commitment, distinguished by a progression from the overt to the covert, the external to the internal, and worldly engagement to detachment. For any intellectual, in any generation, it is both possible and necessary to possess these three forms of concern simultaneously.

Proceeding from case studies of six generations of 20th-century Chinese intellectuals, this book extends its exploration to the broader intellectual community and the sweeping social changes and intellectual transformations of China. It presents both a macro-level portrayal of modern Chinese intellectuals as a group and intimate, finely detailed portraits of their individual mental landscapes.

知识分子的安身立命可以表现为三种不同的人生关怀：社会（政治）关怀、文化（价值）关怀和知识（专业）关怀。这是三种不同层面的人生关怀，有着由显到隐、由外向内、由入世到出世的区别。作为任何一代和任何一个知识分子，这三种关怀都是有可能而且有必要同时具备的。

本书从20世纪中国六代知识分子的个案研究出发，进而关照到整个知识分子群体和中国的社会变迁与思想转型，既是一幅宏观的近现代中国知识分子群像，亦是一张张纤毫毕现的知识分子个体的心灵图景。